By Katie Strachan
The Oshawa Express
It’s something the Durham District School
Board (DDSB) is hoping to avoid through the
creation of a system-wide policy and the help
of a third party tracking software company.
It is plagiarism and each of the board’s
schools deal with the crime differently.
Most principals have developed schoolbased
policies addressing the issue, which are
included in the schools code of conduct, which
is printed in their agendas.
Many schools use a variety of methods to
prevent students from plagiarizing and to minimize
the amount of plagiarism incidents that
the school has.
Those include posters, library orientations,
use of class-time for writing, chunking of
assignments and submissions of rough work.
Should a student be caught plagiarizing,
penalties include a zero grade, rewriting of the
essay, parent involvement and suspensions.
But those caught plagiarizing could face
harsher penalties such as mandatory plagiarism
education sessions, rewriting with staff
monitoring, and substitution of equivalent of
alternative assignments
if schools choose to use
a third party tracking
software.
A report submitted
by the Superintendent
of Education, Luigia
Ayotte, suggests that
some schools are already using third party plagiarism
tracking software companies.
If a school chooses to use the software, they
would need to provide students and parents
with a standard Privacy of Information agreement,
which the board will vote on June 15.
According to the report, it must be optional
for students, with the alternative being that the
student must submit their detailed process
work.
“It’s the higher grades that are going to be
taking a look at info and writing reports so the
work needs to be authentic,” says Ayotte,
adding that elementary schools have the option
of purchasing the software as well.
According to Ayotte, the teacher uses
his/her discretion on when to submit students’
work, provided permission has been granted
from a parent or guardian.
The tracking software is not mandatory for
schools, it’s simply another tool in ensuring
students’ work is authentic, says Ayotte adding
that the board is enforcing guidelines with the
software so that each school is equal.
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