Delegates from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan travelled to the UK for training and advice purposes on dealing with the issue of plagiarism and strategies to roll out training and advice across the whole country.

The training event was very successful with some excellent feedback from the delegates.

Mr Muneer Ahmed, Deputy Director for Quality Assurance said, “All instructors were very much co-operative, positive and caring.  We had one of the best learning experiences.  It is good to see people here are listening and trying to help us in developing quality research within Pakistan.”  Other positive comments from the delegates were: “It is really good work...I enjoyed it.” And, “Overall the training was superb.  All instructors were very helpful.”

Will Murray (of PlagiarismAdvice.Org) said “We really enjoyed working with the delegates from the HEC and were delighted to see that they were already making use of materials developed by UK Universities as they embark on a similar programme to create a culture of honesty and address academic plagiarism in Pakistan that was started by  JISC in the UK in 2002.”

L - R: Mr Muneer Ahmed (Deputy Director, Quality Assurance HEC), Mr Moshin Younas (HEC0 , Mr Hakim Ali Talpur (HEC), Will Murray (CEO nLearning) and Mark Harnor (nLearning)

Practitioners and policy makers in the areas of plagiarism and academic integrity from the international academic community are invited to share their experiences and expertise at the fourth biennial plagiarism conference.

Papers, posters, video and workshop submissions are invited on the following themes:

• Creating a culture of honesty.
• Ensuring authenticity in non text-based disciplines and multimedia.
• Addressing non-traditional learning styles (for example overseas students, mature students etc).
• Ensuring the integrity of research and published work.
• Open theme. Suggested topics include: innovative assessment techniques beyond the essay, the changing nature of authorship in a Web 2.0 world, contract cheating, plagiarism detection etc.

Please note the official language of the conference is English.

The next TurnitinUK User Group will be held on:

Wednesday 3rd February, 2010,
@ Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC13 7JX.
Peter Leffek will be our host.

The format of the user group will be slightly different from previous ones. Instead of guest speakers/presenters, we anticipate that four discussion groups will run concurrently.

You can register for the meeting (via the email which was sent out on 16th November, 2009), or by using this link:

Click here to access the registration form

On the form, you will be asked to make 2 choices of what you would like to discuss at the sessions.  Four main discussion groups will be chosen from the most popular choices.  You will also be asked whether you would be interested in leading one of the group discussions via a short presentation.  The same four groups will run prior to and after the coffee break, therefore allowing people to attend 2 discussion groups during the event. At present, GradeMark seems to be a popular topic for discussion/debate amongst those who have already registered their interest.

The draft programme is:

12.00 noon - 1.00pm                     Lunch and Registration

1.00pm - 2.00pm                           Welcome, updates and new features

2.00pm - 3.00pm                           Discussion Groups (A, B, C) – Grade Mark,  Peer Mark and New Users/Formative Use.

3.00pm - 3.30pm                           Coffee Break – “Vox Pop”

3.30pm - 4.30pm                           Discussion Groups (A, B, C) – Grade Mark, Peer Mark and New Users/Formative Use.  (repeat of 2-3pm)

4.30pm - 5.00pm                           Plenary and Closing Remarks

We look forward to seeing you in February.

PlagiarismAdvice.Org Team

Over 2000 delegates from nearly 100 countries attended the recent Online Educa Berlin Conference and Exhibition.  We would like to thank everyone who took time out of their schedules to come and visit us on our stand.

It was a great to meet you all and improve our understanding of national attitudes towards addressing plagiarism and creating a culture of honesty and very much look forward to speaking to you all again and continuing to develop our working relationship.

Lydia, Barry, James and Will at the Conference.

Thank you to everyone who visited our stand at the AoC last week.

It was interesting to hear how colleges are addressing the issue of plagiarism, or looking for solutions to the problem in the 14-19 FE sector.

Congratulations to Phil Harsland, the Principal of Varndean College, Brighton, who won the delicious hamper of Northumbrian goodies which we took to the event.

Practitioners and policy makers in the areas of plagiarism and academic integrity from the international academic community are invited to share their experiences and expertise. Papers, posters, video and workshop submissions are invited on the following themes:

• Creating a culture of honesty.
• Ensuring authenticity in non text-based disciplines and multimedia.
• Addressing non-traditional learning styles (for example overseas students, mature students etc).
• Ensuring the integrity of research and published work.
• Open theme. Suggested topics include: innovative assessment techniques beyond the essay, the changing nature of authorship in a Web 2.0 world, contact cheating, plagiarism detection etc.

Extended abstracts of 1000 words and proposals are requested by 29 January, 2010.

For further details please click here.

On 23 September at an awards ceremony in London Jude Carroll was presented with a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy. Key to her nomination was her international work in raising awareness of plagiarism and developing teaching strategies to promote authentic work from students. In accepting the award, she paid tribute to all those who have assisted with this task, “It’s a big issue and needs many heads and hands”.

Jude’s tireless enthusiasm over the past 10 years which has extended from general awareness workshops all over the globe to developing institutional and individual responses to the issue formed the basis of the holistic approach to plagiarism adopted by the JISC-funded Plagiarism Advisory Service (the forerunner of PlagiarismAdvice.org) back in 2002. The Oxford Brookes Good Practice Guide written by Jude and colleague, Jon Appleton, in 2001, is also still considered a blueprint for institutional thinking on plagiarism.

As a member of the Plagiarism Advisory Service’s Advisory Board Jude helped to guide the service and its approach, and remains a highly-valued supporter of the service today.

More recently Jude’s work with the influential Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange (ASKe) CETL at Oxford Brookes University has taken her to the Royal Technical University in Stockholm to consider Scandinavian responses to “fusk” (plagiarism) and to share lessons learned in the UK. Jude will keynote at the 2010 Fourth International Plagiarism Conference on her work in this area with internationally diverse cultures and differing assessment styles.

Plagiarismadvice.org will be exhibiting at the Online Educa Berlin, on the 2nd-4th December 2009, the 15th Conference on  Technology Supported Learning and Training, at the Hotel InterContinental, Berlin.