Tackling plagiarism

An article in the Education Guardian yesterday reported on the plan by Universities UK (UUK) to hold a conference on plagiarism caught my eye. The plan is to produce national guidelines so that universities won't have to come up with their own rules and regs and every student will be judged equally. Read it here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1924352,00.html

I was interested as some of our RLOs are on referencing and cover the WHY of referencing. A simple, short digital recording or Turning Point quiz could be very useful in explaining why it's important to reference other's work in a fun, interactive way. It's already being done in lots of universities and websites like Intute's Internet Detective (http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/) are also playing a useful role.

The more interactive and relevant we can make it for students the more the message should sink in.

The new and improved BRUM project webpage!

Please take a look at our new RLO repository webpage at http://www.is.bham.ac.uk/blasst/brum.htm. All 15 RLOs are now on here complete with files and download instructions - it couldn't be easier to use them!

Eventually we hope to have a webpage with a more relevant URL but for now it's great to have everything just one mouse click away, not hidden within WebCT. We're hoping this will make them more attractive and easier to use.

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

Well don’t we all! While we work out how to (maybe RLOs are the next big You Tube !), just a quick post about the technology used in the Ask the Audience bit of the show. We have bought a site licence for a very similar system, a Personal Response Systems (or Clickers for short), using Turning Point software. Everyone on campus can download the software from www.turningtechnologies.com then from the top bar select Downloads – TurningPoint Software, TurningPoint 2006 Installation and then accept all defaults. The software will be downloaded and cancel any messages about registering via phone / email. The software looks exactly like powerpoint, but with an extra toolbar.

Its that easy to create interactive quizzes for your lectures and seminars! Please get in touch if you’d like further details or a demonstration. We’ve created 3 RLOs using this software – one on referencing, another on the range of resources available to students and the third on search strategy. Hope you enjoy using these!