The purpose of the recommendations section is to recommend the various strategies that universities may use in dealing with the prevalence and incidence of plagiarism. Institutions may use some of the recommended strategies in combination with others. In fact, it is strongly recommended that institutions not use a singular approach in dealing with plagiarism but instead use a combination of approaches because as discussed throughout the study plagiarism is a multi-faceted concept. Thus the issue requires multiple approaches to address it.
7.2.1 Early familiarisation and demystification of university practices for high school students
Universities could conduct open days, where high school students would be taught of the various academic practices taking place within the university. This would give the students foundational or even basic knowledge for when they enter university. Plagiarism could be one of the topics that are covered in these “open days”. High school students would be given materials they could read at their own leisure and during the open day festivities. Yorke and Thomas (2003: 68) consider this process as the demystification process. The main purpose is to prepare the students for university and also acquaint the students with university practises, values and norms. During the demystification process the students would be sensitised to issues associated with plagiarism so they are more receptive to what they will be taught in their first year in university (the goal is exposure). Additionally, high schools would benefit more if they integrated plagiarism as part of their syllabuses.
180 7.2.2 Academic staff and lecturer training and workshops
In accordance with the data reviewed and collected in this study it is suggested that the students would benefit from teachers playing a more prominent role in their learning and writing processes. The students largely depend on the lecturers to give them the necessary information on issues such as plagiarism. Lecturers and academic staff could capitalise on their roles by proactively disseminating and deconstructing for the students appropriate academic writing procedures. Institutions would therefore have to ensure that they hire and train their staff members and lecturers regularly that they assist the students’ avoid plagiarism.
Academic staff members could attend workshops and courses targeted at teaching them the appropriate strategies to use in teaching the students the appropriate strategies to avoid plagiarism. Training the academic staff and lecturers about plagiarism would also ensure that there are coherent strategies of dealing with plagiarism instead of academic staff using their own judgements when dealing with the issue. Furthermore, academic staff could conduct similar workshops as the ones they would be attending for the students either as part of orientation or as part of mandatory workshops that students of all levels are encouraged to attend. In short, there needs to be constant guidance, interaction, corroboration, reinforcement and negotiation between the academic staff and students (East, 2006; Thompson, 2005).
Moreover, the students should not only be informed about the punishments on plagiarism, but they should also be taught about the impacts of plagiarism on their learning and writing abilities. Lecturers and academic staff could emphasise the positive aspects of referencing and the creation of original work. For example, the students did not understand the importance of avoiding plagiarism or referencing. Although referencing alone as a preventative measure to plagiarism would not be effective. The academic staffs need to explain to the students the importance of referencing and how to do this appropriately.
Referencing and plagiarism represent interrelated issues. If the students were ensured to know the correct citation practices it would minimise the aspects of plagiarism associated with the lack of awareness of correct citation methods.
In addition, prior to educating the students about plagiarism tutors, lecturers and other academic staff could evaluate the students’ knowledge and understanding of the term. This would be considered as a targeted approach. Lecturers and academic staff would target specifically the students’ problem areas, where they express confusion about the appropriate
181 writing strategies. This would be opposed to taking a blanket approach, where academic staff and lecturers would assume by themselves why students plagiarise. The targeting approach would help do away with of generalised approaches on plagiarism which may at times contribute to the hindrance in the development of effective strategies to deal with plagiarism.
7.2.3 Group work and peer support
Peer review structures and activities could be developed and encouraged within institutions as strategies to assist the students in dealing with the issue of plagiarism. The lecturers would encourage the students to work in pairs or groups so they assist each other to avoid plagiarism. This recommendation is in support of what was found in the key findings chapter.
According to the students they would rather intervene themselves than report their fellow classmates and so peer review and assistance could be one strategy to combat plagiarism in the university. Students would be encouraged to help teach each other about plagiarism and teach each other about ways to avoid it. A great deal of this however, rests on lecturers disseminating enough and accurate information for the students to be able to assist each other.
Peer-review methods have been reported to result in less plagiarism. For example, multi- authored and peer reviewed materials displayed having less plagiarism than single authored articles (Thomas and De Bruin 2015: 2). This peer review strategy would also be highly effective in combating instances of plagiarism relating to class size in the undergraduate years of study. Since, in large classes the lectures may lack sufficient time and resources to ensure that all the learners know and are aware of the correct citation methods and ways to avoid plagiarism. Peer-review strategies could assist the lectures as students would work together and evaluate each other in creating good ethical work when completing their assignments.
For assessment purposes, students would be encouraged to work in groups in class and engage in various group and individual activities that would be marked and assessed by the lecturers and tutors. Group activities would be less time consuming to assess rather than individual work done by the students. Group activities would ensure a more conducive environment for the students to learn both from their lecturers and from each other about unacceptable academic misdemeanours such as plagiarism.
182 7.2.4 Anti-plagiarism software
Although anti-plagiarism software, did not appear to have a significant impact in the students writing and learning processes. It is still one legitimate strategy of dealing with plagiarism.
This software can help detect the levels of similarities in the students’ work against work on the internet and when it reports high levels of similarity higher than acceptable (plagiarism).
The students would often be encouraged to re-do their work in efforts to reduce their plagiarism levels or face penalties such as reduced marks or even a zero mark depending on the students’ level of study. Postgraduate honours students especially would be harshly penalised for high levels of plagiarism as they are expected to produce “quality work” as indicated by the students in this study.
However, there were some postgraduate honours students who indicated that they could bypass anti-plagiarism software. Therefore, anti-plagiarism software is expected to be more effective in discouraging plagiarism amongst first year students. The first year students that reported to have used or had knowledge of this software appeared to be more afraid of this software’s than the postgraduate honours students. The first year students were afraid that this software would catch them out or report their inappropriate and unacknowledged textual borrowings. To some postgraduate students especially those who do not have the means to bypass this software or the desire to plagiarise anti-plagiarism software may still be effective for them. Thus the desire to plagiarise determines the overall efficacy of this software.
7.2.5 Raising student awareness on plagiarism
Lecturers should ensure they adequately teach students the various complexities revolving around the idea of plagiarism instead of assuming the students are aware of them (Ercegovac and Richardson, 2004: 307). Universities should make certain that they communicate to the students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) proactively and effectively the issue of plagiarism. A majority of the students in the study appeared unaware of institutional policies and procedures used by the institution in dealing with plagiarism. Although some students claimed that they were aware of institutional policy and procedure documents on plagiarism, they did not refer to the content in these documents or the processes indicated within them.
Thus the main goal of the university is raising awareness on plagiarism and academic misdemeanours like plagiarism.
Institutions should ensure that plagiarism policies and procedure documents are easily accessible to students. As suggested by one participant in the study plagiarism policies could
183 be uploaded on student websites such as moodle and student central as students often interact with these sources. In addition, studying materials such as module guides could have a few pages discussing plagiarism and different referencing formats for students. However, since the students do not actively seek out information on plagiarism themselves lectures and academic staff would direct students to different sources containing information about plagiarism. Proactive approaches in dealing with plagiarism would be more favourable than reactive approaches for when students have been accused or caught plagiarising.
Prior to the development of tactics to disseminate policy and procedure documents on plagiarism institutions should ensure that the policies are compatible with the students that are enrolled within them. This might be slightly difficult for institutions to achieve and would involve institutions considering where they are located geographically and the national policies on plagiarism. Furthermore, the institution would have to assess the student demographics, for example the students’ language statuses, the students’ second language status’ or first language status’ etc. Once the academic institutions have adequately assessed the demographics of the students enrolling within them they could then formulate policies that can accommodate the student populations enrolled or likely to be enrolled within the institutions.
Moreover, institutions should try and stimulate a culture of honesty by having encouraging open dialogues with the students about the issue of plagiarism. Disciplinary procedures dealing with the issue of plagiarism could be made public. Finally, universities could incorporate courses on research ethics for the students and academic staff, these courses could be compulsory depending on how prevalent the plagiarism is in an institution (Sheikh and Mohamed, 2015). This would assist in instilling the students’ with the ethical values necessary to produce good academic work, while also educating the students of what constitutes academic misconducts. For the academic staff and lecturers these courses would act as refresher courses, they would attend these to reinforce the information they already had on plagiarism.
7.2.6 Policy implementation
Policy enforcement structures could be developed on an institutional and faculty level.
Different schools or faculties could create their own structures to deal with and address the issue of plagiarism, especially because different faculties may define plagiarism differently.
These structures would be responsible for the implementation and enforcement of plagiarism
184 policies and procedures. It is not enough that institutions claim to have policies and procedures on plagiarism but these policies should be enforceable. Having structures that can be held accountable for dealing solely with the manifestations of plagiarism would ensure that issues on plagiarism are dealt with adequately and appropriately.