Assessment design to minimise plagiarism and collusion

The most effective way to minimise plagiarism and collusion is to design assessments that will minimise the temptation for students to use other people's work. There are many ways to achieve this, for example:

• Avoid using the same assignments every trimester.
• Use assignments that require students to build a case study from their own workplace, experience or locality.
• Rather than requiring students to gather and present information, ask them to analyse and evaluate provided material.
• Build in a requirement for students to include unit work such as tutorial or online discussions - their own contributions as well as other students', all properly referenced, of course.
• Build an assessment around reflective journal postings.
• Have students present their key findings to the group in an eLive or tutorial session, and take questions.
• Require students to submit photocopies of the documents they reference.
• With group work, include instruction on the differences between collaboration and collusion, and build in an effective peer assessment strategy (for further information on peer assessment, see the Self and peer assessment module.
• Set a hurdle requirement that assesses students' understanding of plagiarism and collusion and their critical thinking, summarising, paraphrasing and referencing skills.
• Provide sufficient time and resources to complete assessment tasks.

The Australian Universities Teaching Committee (AUTC) list 36 'strategies to minimise plagiarism' in their website Minimising plagiarism. This page summarises the principles involved to three:

• Make expectations clear to students.
• Design assessment to minimise opportunities for plagiarism.
• Visibly monitor, detect and respond to incidences of plagiarism (AUTC 2002, 7).

Other useful references include:

Brookes University's Plagiarism good practice guide

The Australian Council on Open, Distance and E-learning (ACODE) project Audit of academic integrity and plagiarism issues in Australia and New Zealand

References

AUTC 2002, Minimising plagiarism, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/03/plagMain.html#def1, accessed 3 October 2007.