User:Klortho/MolBio FA13 to do

Do more to combat plagiarism

How can we amend the course page / training materials to head off plagiarism before it occurs?

Ideas:

• Start from the very first week.
• Make them read this article
• Make it very clear that close paraphrasing is just as unacceptable as plagiarism, and give lots of examples
• Idea: make students use their sandbox first to draft new material, and check for plagiarism there.
• Make turnitin available to students for them to check their own work, before posting it to their article ("It may be helpful for those who are unsure about the paraphrasing".)
• Set up to use turnitin early, the week of the first big review.
• Duplication detector is another good resource.

Fix week 5 assignments

• In the week 5 assignment, there was considerable confusion. The problem was that we asked for a list of references to go along with each article, but it is not easy to create multiple "notes" section on a single page. There are two options:

Have them list the references for each article in a simple numbered list, without the refs, like this:

 # {{cite journal ...}}
 # {{cite journal ...}}

Or, have them use footnotes, and one reference list for the whole group page. Sherry suggested she things this is best, since it is the same format as will be used for final article pages. I agree.

• Similarly, in week 5, be very clear about what's expected in the practice citations on their sandboxes. Here's a sample of what they should look like, with some notes.

• Make sure it's clear that they should use inline citations (footnotes, with the <ref>) tags.

Instructions for reviewers and reviewees

• Need to add more instructions to reviewers, and point them to the rubric.

Throughout the course:

• We (OAs) need to be more timely about OA reviews. The earlier they get feedback, the better. They also provide good examples for other student reviewers to emulate.
• When doing reviews, make sure you let the students know that the comments are suggestions only. Ultimately, they are in charge of their articles. Maybe something like:
  • Keep in mind that my comments are just suggestions -- don't feel compelled to take my advice if you disagree with it.

Miscellaneous suggestions

• Incorporate link to, and maybe some material from, Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable

• Maybe, in general, do "solution keys" for many of the homework assignments.

• At least one student in Spring, 2013 said that he had a lot of trouble viewing the videos. How can we fix this?

• Ask them early on to pick a featured article to emulate. Or, as part of the Wikipedia training, give them a couple of examples of featured article, and make them study the style and conventions.

• Make sure they know when they should be moving from offline or sandbox drafts to actually editing the article. Maybe give them another deadline which specifies that X amount of stuff has to have been added to the article by then; including at least three or four edits by *each* team member.

• Provide a quick tutorial on how to find suitably licensed images; and an intro to inkscape for any who are interested. I added some info about this under "Further resources", but it should also be incorporated into the course material.

• Maybe more structured assignments during the actual writing phase. Have them work on the article in a systematic way: creating an outline, filling in details, etc. Maybe what's needed is more hand-holding on the process of writing a good article: where to keep your notes and lists of references, etc.

• Add a link to Wikipedia:SCIRS

• Simplify the "milestone summary", so that there are fewer different places where assignments end up (if possible).

• Include a link to an example of a peer review, as well as bullet-by-bullet responses from the original editor. Emphasize that format.