Academic Integrity Learning Task (for students who have been directed to complete by their instructor)

INTRODUCTION

Welcome

From this page you will be able to access and complete the Academic Integrity Learning Task.

Academic Integrity is an extremely serious issue. Breaches of Academic Integrity generally include one, some or most of the following:

• Mistakes with citations (e.g., incorrect spelling, no date or page number, citation not in the reference list, incorrect conventions)

• Information copied and not cited (e.g., cutting and pasting from internet sites)

• Inappropriate paraphrasing (e.g., significant amounts of original text embedded in paraphrased text)

• Reference list incorrectly formatted or missing

• Collusion: student producing an assignment where it is clear that the work has not been completed by the individual alone and/or material has been copied from another student's work without their knowledge and consent

• Ghost writing: sections or an entire assessment task have been written by someone other than the enrolled student (e.g., purchasing an essay online or receiving an essay from a student)
  

• Purloining (stealing) part/sections of the work of another student (e.g., including images, code, tables, text, media)
  

• Citing fabricated sources and references
  

At Murdoch, while we recognise there are cases where students wilfully breach Academic Integrity, more commonly cases involve inexperience with the conventions of academic discourse and/or not clearly understanding what constitutes a breach of Academic Integrity.

The following is a learning activity intended to provide you with an opportunity to further your understanding of Academic Integrity and the conventions of academic discourse.

Overview of Tasks

The learning tasks in this exercise are divided into two parts. Part 1 requires you to reflect on on Murdoch University’s stance on plagiarism. You will watch a video and read material on Academic Integrity covering topics such as avoiding plagiarism and how to cite references correctly.

Part 1

1. 1 Watch the video entitled Referencing produced by the Queensland University of Technology. It comes with a transcript if you want to download it. Click on the URL to view the video. (http://www.qutic.qut.edu.au/about/projects.jsp)

1.2 Read the following tip sheets produced by the Student Learning Centre at Murdoch University. These sheets provide you with detailed but concise information on the each of the topics.

Avoiding Plagiarism
Writing from sources
Principles of referencing
Quoting and referencing
Why is plagiarism so wrong?
Paraphrasing & Referencing

Please Note:
While there are several styles of referencing used across Murdoch University, the two most commonly used styles are:

• APA (American Psychological Association)
• Chicago

1.3 Finally, explore and read carefully the material contained under the following links, which provide more comprehensive information on academic integrity and on citations.

For a comprehensive discussion of academic integrity, including issues of plagiarism, referencing, paraphrasing, collusion and common mistakes, see:
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/teach/plagiarism/

For additional and more comprehensive information on how to cite references see: http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/find/citation/

Part 2

In Part 2, you are required to self-enrol in an LMS unit called Academic Integrity and successfully complete a 15 question quiz based on the readings in part 1. You are also required to write a mini-essay on the topic of plagiarism that you must then submit with a Turnitin originality report.

This task is intended to help you practice paraphrasing, quoting and referencing and using Turnitin. You are asked to use Turnitin to check the essay for originality and to learn how to read, understand and then use originality reports to write better essays.

A detailed description of originality reports is available in Chapter 2: Originality Checking in the Turnitin Student User Manual (2009) at: http://turnitin.com/static/support_guides_manuals.html .

Alternatively, you can watch a 7 minute Video Tutorial, which explains how to read an originality report, available by clicking the link below:
http://cdn.turnitin.com/resources/multimedia/training/turnitin/instructor/view_report/view_report.htm

More details are supplied within the Academic Integrity LMS unit.

STEPS TO SELF-ENROL

To self-enrol is easy.

Once you have clicked the self-enrol button you will have to enter your student number and password.

Click the enrol button for Academic Integrity Learning Tasks. You will now be able to find Academic Integrity Learning Tasks in MyUnits.

ENTER SELF-ENROL