By Bob Streff, Instructional Designer/Web Developer

Anti-plagiarism software and services create controversy. There are pros and cons. On the one hand, faculty has been charged with upholding their institution’s academic misconduct policies. In the area of plagiarism, sometimes the line is not clearly drawn. If a student misses on quotation or incorrectly cites, is it plagiarism or just a mistake? As the results of accusing a student of plagiarism are quite serious on both sides, most instructors are cautious, even to the point of overlooking possible cases.

Faculty go to great lengths to develop research and writing assignments which are designed to increase a student’s ability to research topics, evaluate ideas, synthesize that information, and communicate their finding in a clear and scholarly manner. The purpose of giving grades is to evaluate those abilities, not the ability to obtain the end product without actually proceeding though the process.

Enter the services and software. They tout that they will seek the offender out and give the instructor an outside opinion as to the probability of plagiarized work. Now the instructor has a third party to suggest the offence and take the responsibility of being wrong. And it relieves the instructor of the added time involved in checking for plagiarism. There’s a new cop in town and it applies its laws equally for all.

But there is another side to this issue. The paper is the student’s intellectual property. Did the student give permission for a third party to see the paper? Some services keep a copy of the document basically to grow their reference library. Is this a copyright violation? One thing not mentioned usually is that those that do add the paper to their database gives the student proof of copyright by a third party. What determines a “clean” paper? What about reference material not in their database?

It seems like there needs to be a balance. How about this? Have the students use the software/service before they turn in their paper? Now they can see what the “grading criteria” is and have the opportunity to correct it before the final draft is submitted. Now everyone can be happy. The faculty’s worries are minimized and the students learn. And isn’t that what education is really about?

By Charles Christison, Instructional Designer

Are you one of those people always on the run? As you run from one errand or meeting to the next, do you often think you should make a note of something to remember, only to have your thought lost in your busy schedule? I often do. I came across a tool that helps me track my thoughts, called Jott. Jott uses different technologies by merging cell phones, email, and text messaging in a unique and useful way. Jott is currently a free service to which you subscribe online. During your account configuration, you identify your contacts and your cell phone number.



How does Jott work? You call its toll-free number and its automated voice system recognizes your phone, and asks you, "Who do you want to jott?" You respond with a name of someone on your contact list and, at the beep, you leave a message. Jott converts your spoken word into a text message and sends it to the contact that you identified. If your contact is identified with a cell phone number, Jott will send that phone number the text message. If your contact is identified with an email address, then Jott will send that email address the text message along with a link to the audio message.

Jott allows you to remind yourself or others when you're not able to make note on paper. For example: You're in your favorite store and have a thought for your presentation next week.After calling and sending a message to yourself, you will find an email with your memo in your email inbox when you get back to the office. You can also have Jott send reminders to you for upcoming events such as birthdays. You can configure a contact with a group of people. By sending a message to that contact, all people in the group will receive the message.

I'm still discovering all the features Jott offers. For more information, visit Jott's web site. If you decide to use it, please let me know your thoughts.