Faculty Perceptions of Plagiarism: Insight for Librarians' Information Literacy Programs

Abstract

Using a survey modified from The Plagiarism Handbook, 1 the research team surveyed all undergraduate and graduate faculty (n = 79) teaching during the fall 2016 semester at a small private college in the United States. With a final survey response rate of 59.5 percent (n = 47), the researchers learned that, while the faculty's definitions of plagiarism fluctuated, overall faculty definitions paralleled the official definition of plagiarism at this institution. Furthermore, the researchers learned that the vast majority of faculty, 74 percent (n = 35), do not currently invite library staff into their classrooms to teach students how to avoid plagiarism. Given this finding, this study indicates that there was an opportunity for librarians to collaborate with faculty to develop new information literacy and plagiarism deterrent resources. These were intended to support faculty teaching and to additionally market the existing online information literacy training modules, previously developed as part of the authors' Information Literacy Assessment (ILA) program. 2

Awareness about plagiarism and the effectiveness of library literacy programme towards its deterrence: a perspective of postgraduate resident doctors

“…While respondents generally agreed that the library in each of the teaching hospitals was responsible for teaching information literacy skills, a high percentage of respondents indicated that the library did not actually organize workshops or other types of training sessions on research writing skills. Approximately seventy per cent reported that there was no collaboration between librarians and the research supervisor to assist this cohort with plagiarism prevention; this supports the findings of Michalak et al (2018) that faculty tended not to invite librarians into their classrooms to teach about this topic. Although based on the survey results, the researchers have inferred that there is some IL skills instruction within the two libraries, a large number of respondents indicated that the library was not instructing them in those basic IL skills which have an inherent connection with plagiarism, e.g.…”

“…At the same time, Shirazi et al (2010) have suggested that institutions and doctors are jointly liable for the prevention of plagiarism. This is an ideal opportunity for the library to promote collaboration, as Michalak et al (2018) have discussed. As at the national level, ideally, the collaboration would be contextualised on the basis of the broader challenge of research / academic integrity but including plagiarism as a key component.…”

“…Therefore, as suggested by Michalak et al (2018), the author(s) of this study perceived this gap as an opportunity to investigate potential collaboration between librarians and relevant stakeholders. Given the documented contribution in the literature of library information literacy (IL) programmes towards the prevention of plagiarism, the intended study was undertaken in the context of postgraduate resident doctors enrolled in two wellregarded teaching hospitals in Peshawar, Pakistan.…”

Teaching Academic Integrity in Quebec Universities: Roles Professors Adopt

“…Firstly, Integrity Ambassadors need to work on their own personal integrity identity, their skills and knowledge about academic integrity in order for them transmit this integrity culture to their students. Research has shown that some professors admit that they lack the knowledge required to teach about plagiarism (Colella, 2018;Michalak et al, 2018), that they are inconsistent when dealing with it (de Jager and Brown, 2010), and some of them have even been caught plagiarizing (Elliott et al, 2013). Professors need to learn about academic integrity if they are to teach about it and become models for their students.…”

Library-Faculty Referencing and Plagiarism Pilot Using Technology-Mediated Feedback for Change

“…For example, new and undergraduate students may lack the skills to find our online resources, while material delivered face-to-face lacks scalability. Teaching staff also do not always invite librarians into their classes to teach about plagiarism (see Michalak et al, 2018). It is also difficult in a physical, real-time learning context to cater to the varied learning needs of individual students within a single cohort.…”