Ofqual, the regulator of examinations, in partnership with plagiarismadvice.org, has published three new guides to give teachers, students and parents/carers a greater understanding of how to produce honest, authentic and correctly referenced work.

The Student Guide describes the fundamental techniques students need to help them make appropriate use of the vast array of online information sources now at their disposal. The guide describes how sources can be checked for authenticity, authority and accuracy using a range of techniques including specific advice about popular wiki resources, such as Wikipedia - which the guide highlights as an excellent starting point for research - so long as the material is verified using authoritative sources!

The Student Guide also recommends the use of other sources such as peer reviewed materials, the school library, BBC, and Hansard websites as ways of ensuring authoritative and accurate information and discusses how Yahoo and Google can be used as a good starting point for research.

The Teachers Guides covers current best practice to help ensure that student work is authentic including the increasingly popular use of originality checking services such Turnitin which is currently used by 97% of UK universities, many colleges and all the JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications) awarding bodies.

Jo Hirst of the JCQ is quoted in the guide as saying “All of the UK unitary awarding organisations have access to electronic plagiarism detection tools [Turnitin] and use them to support their malpractice investigations. Where an examiner or moderator has suspicions about the authenticity of a candidate’s work, awarding bodies are increasingly using electronic tools to confirm these suspicions and produce evidence to share with the head of centre.”

These new guides further underline PlagiarismAdvice.Org’s commitment to developing a culture of honesty and understanding about correct referencing within academic institutions prior to students embarking on undergraduate study.

Ofqual is sponsoring the fourth International Plagiarism Conference at Northumbria University which is being hosted by PlagiarismAdvice.org and will run from 21st June to 23rd June 2010.

Will Murray, of plagiarismadvice.org said “Developing proper research and attribution techniques is an important foundation for further academic study at college and University. With the amount of electronic information now available, it is important that learners develop these skills early on so that they don’t fall into the bad habits of cutting and pasting without attribution or using unsubstantiated material in place of authoritative sources.”

Contact Information

Will Murray, CEO, nlearning/plagiarismadvice.org. (Guides co-author) This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 0845 6430105

Anne Flood, Academic Advisor, plagiarismadvice.org (Guides co-author) This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 0845 6430105

Ofqual press office on 07595 087612 or if out-of-hours the duty press officer on 07798 924 552