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"Objective - To describe the development and implementation of two courses designed to help university students avoid plagiarism. Design - Quantitative and qualitative analysis. Setting - A university in the United Kingdom. Subjects - An unknown number of university students who took a Plagiarism Awareness Program (PAP) course between 2008 and 2011, and approximately 3,000 university students enrolled in a Plagiarism Avoidance for New Students (PANS) course delivered via a virtual learning environment (VLE) between October and December 2012. The authors attempted to collect rates of continued plagiarism among students who had taken plagiarism education courses. The authors also surveyed 702 university students about plagiarism in 2011. Methods - Data collected from PAP participants informed revision of the authors' approach to plagiarism education and led to development of the second course, PANS. At the end of the course, students completed a test of their knowledge about plagiarism. Authors compared scores from students who took a course supervised by a librarian to the scores from students who took the course independently. Main Results - Students reported that many aspects of citation and attribution are challenging (p. 149). The authors discovered that 93% of students who completed the PANS course facilitated by a librarian in-person passed the final exam with a grade of 70% or higher, while 85% of students who took the same course independently, without a librarian instructor, in an online VLE scored 70% or higher (p. 155). The authors report that referrals of students who plagiarized declined significantly (p-value < 0.001) since the implementation of a plagiarism avoidance curriculum. Conclusion - As reported by the authors, first-year university students require more extensive education about plagiarism avoidance. A university plagiarism avoidance program instructed by librarians reduces the total number of students caught plagiarizing an

Widget Design Authoring Toolkit (WIDGaT) is the world's first online 'code-free' widget creation tool !  WIDGaT a JISC-funded Learning and Teaching Innovation project led by the Accessibility Research Centre at Teesside University.The WIDGaT toolkit supports the design, development and sharing of widgets, by enabling teachers and students to easily produce bespoke widgets.

Blackboard's e-learning system dominates the online learning software market. In this essay the author critically examines the structure of Blackboard's two online learning delivery systems, Blackboard 8.0 and Blackboard CE6. The author identifies ways in

"This new book from the celebrated author of The Language of New Media is the first to offer a rigorous theory of the technology we all use daily - software for media authoring, access, and sharing. "

"The Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice aims to provide a supportive publishing outlet to allow established and particularly new authors to contribute to the scholarly discourse of academic practice (both generally and in their discipline area) through the publication of papers that are theory-based and supported by evidence, as well as through the publication of Opinion Pieces and 'On the Horizon' papers on emerging work."

This paper investigates the similarities and differences between two important ideas in information processing and knowledge utilisation. Those ideas are [critical thinking] and [information literacy]. The two phrases are shown in brackets to indicate that the two words involved in each idea are not arbitrarily combined but have been coupled by authors to represent a single entity or a focus for development of concepts describing the characteristics involved. By exploring terms related to this couplet from the same sentence, the meaning of each of the central ideas can be expanded. The education, library science, and health science literature were used in this study, which analysed 8745 articles dealing with [critical thinking] and 8201 reports dealing with [information literacy] included in either ERIC or PubMed from 2000-2009.

"Information literacy-the ability to find, evaluate and use information effectively-is an essential skill set. The authors examine how assignments such as case analyses and research reports help business students master these abilities and provide examples of how analytic rubrics with measurable outcomes are particularly suited to assessing these skills. Also demonstrated is how librarians enhance and support student learning of information literacy by teaching in-depth research skills. Working together, professors and librarians can give students a solid foundation in the information-handling skills they need to be effective and productive in the workplace today."

Nine guides written on technology enhanced learning initially by the authors listed below. Nearly all are current or recent members of the ALT Research Committee.

Wikinomics author Don Tapscott looks at the future, or not, of universities

"Mandating portfolios on a system wide or statewide basis may destroy one of their greatest assets: allowing students to reflect on their learning and feel a sense of hope and control. Once standards are defined by an outside authority, teacher-student co

"In a fascinating and forward-thinking policy change, the journal RNA Biology recently began requiring authors to submit a Wikipedia-ready page after acceptance, so that new findings can be published in Wikipedia after journal publication"

Jaron Lanier, author of 'You Are Not A Gadget' and the coiner of the term 'Digital Maoism' talks with Aleks Krotoski (of Virtual Revolution Fame) about the impact of "social media" on wider society

This article explores excellence in web-based teaching. Drawing on the views of experts in the field and the perspective of their own years of experience, the authors compiled a list of 9 principles to provide direction in the search for online excellence

"You might not want to pin your hopes on nanotechnology, genetic engineering, or miracle drugs, says Michael Huesemann, author of Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won't Save Us Or the Environment. As much as we'd like to believe that technological innovation will let us magically continue our lifestyle and prevent social, economic, and environmental collapse, Huesemann shows that most technological solutions are ineffective-and, in the presence of continued economic growth, modern technology does not promote sustainability, but hastens collapse."

The tools available to create great learning content continue to get better each year. Developers are focusing on providing products that are easier to use, more feature-rich, and able to create engaging content quickly. To help you find the right produc

An academic journal has introduced a requirement that academics post their research findings on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that anyone may edit.