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An experiment analyzing over 1,200 undergraduate papers at a selective liberal arts institution found that requiring students to complete a tutorial on academic honesty substantially reduced the likelihood of plagiarism.

This tutorial from Indiana University on recognizing (and avoiding) plagiarism is wordy, but the "Examples" and "Practice" sections in particular would be useful to students.

In particular, see the sidebar on "Preventing plagiarism in research papers."

"The study presented here explores the responses and perceptions of a group of first year students at an Irish university after their first contact with anti-plagiarism software in the context of peer-reviewed assignments. The results indicate that the use of anti-plagiarism software led to a decrease in Internet plagiarism and to lower grades being awarded in peer reviews. Additionally, students were found to have a positive attitude towards the anti-plagiarism software in the context of peer reviewed assignments." - from the abstract.

This tutorial from the Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin consortium walks through academic honesty issues in a way which might be more engaging (and more detailed) than a short policy statement could be. Part of a larger "plagiarism resource site."

This study examines the Internet sources higher education students use in their written work and the implications of their choices. It is based on an analysis of over 112 million content matches from more than 28 million student papers submitted to Turnitin between July 2011 and June 2012. Included are recommendations for educators on how to improve student research and citation skills.

Recommended during a NITLE session on encouraging original writing.

Blog post by Tracy Mitrano, NITLE Fellow.

I was struck by the role of assumptions about collaboration and academic honesty in this piece.

A proposal that college curricula should more fully and more intentionally take advantage of the college's physical locations and the moment in time. What surprises me is how relatively easy to incorporate some of the ideas seem.

Turnitin released a report covering over 1,000 institutions for a five year period that shows a substantial decrease in what it calls "unoriginal writing" at schools using Turnitin. While some of that reduction is certainly a result of using Turnitin, there are a number of flaws to their claims which we'll see in a follow-up post to this one.

Interview with James Lang, the author of "Cheating Lessons." The soundbyte from the interview might be this: "The fascinating discovery I made in my own research was that the features of a course that do tend to induce cheating were also ones that tend to reduce learning."

This video project includes faculty members from a variety of disciplines talking about the meaning of academic integrity, and the importance of citation and originality, in their fields. A very interesting example of talking to students about the positive side of academic honesty.

One of the interesting findings in the literature on academic honesty is that specific policies or processes appear less important than having a visible campus conversation about the value and purpose of being honest. This memo might be an interesting starting point for having that conversation with your students.

Very interesting podcast episode. Turnitin inspires some strong reactions. Some professors are intentional and creative in the way they integrate it with their writing pedagogy. Others raise a number of important ethical questions about they way the tool makes assumptions about your classroom environment.

How could research on the psychology of cheating impact our discussions about academic honesty?

Now is the right time to engage students in discussion about what is and isn't cheating. Stress and bad scheduling can lead some students to make wrong choices at the end of the semester; a reminder about some of these "grey area" issues might save a lot of heartache later.

Slides from a NITLE webinar presented by Kelly McBride on encouraging a culture of originality and intellectual honesty in student writing. Recording of the event also available.