Plagriasm Reflection

Plagiarism is the use or imitation of another persons work meant to represent ones own original work without credit to the author. NETS standard 1. Creativity and Innovation is effected by plagiarism because students are required to use existing knowledge to create new ideas as well as create original work as a means of expressing learned information. If a student copies information or another students work but passes it off as their own, they are not meeting standard one. To meet NETS standard 2. Communication and Collaboration, students will work together to create original works. When a group creates a work, each student will be given credit for their contribution. Students bring their own ideas to the group to collaboratively create an original work. NETS standard 3. Research and Information Fluency requires that students will analyze, evaluate, and ethically use information they find from any resource.  In order to become Digital Citizens, NETS standard 5., students must follow and support the legal and ethical use of information and technology.
   
The turnitin website is effective in identifying sections of a students paper that appears in online resources as well as other papers already in the system. The system identifies when students plagiaries other authors as well as plagiaries themselves. This prevents students from using their own work or a version of their work in another class or assignment. Turnitin identifies what percentage of the paper is found in other sources and can take the instructor to the source as well as highlight the copied or imitated section. Turnitin can be an effective tool to raise students awareness about plagiarism. In some instances, a student may not even realize he or she is plagiarizing, so turnitin will help him or her improve their research and analysis of resources. With this resource, a teacher will spend less time finding proof if he or she suspects a student of plagiarizing. With the highlighted plagiarized section of a resource in hand, a teacher can then prove a student has plagiarized. A student may just need clarification about what qualifies as plagiarism or punishment depending on the percentage of information copied.