ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING: HOW PLAGIARISM COULD BE USED AS AN EFFICIENT LEARNING TOOL?

Instructors should consider the role of responsible feedback as one of their main priorities on their learning and teaching strategies. It is well known that feedback is the bridge between students’ and instructors, as students’ work and efforts are reviewed and put into an appropriate learning context. In this regard, we argue that plagiarism detection on course work should be viewed as an additional vehicle that allows students achieving settled academic standards. Plagiarism detection tools should be used to encourage and motivate students to follow good practices, at the time that inspire and guide students to work harder. In this regard, quality feedback plays a crucial role when identifying those areas of weaknesses on written standards, should consider carefully by instructors when guiding their students aiming to comply with academic standards. We need to remember that students are learners and that they need tutoring, mentoring, objective and clear guidelines that aim at keeping them focused and motivated on their learning and this also applies with regard to academic honesty in their class work. Accordingly, we argue that instructors should be capable of elaborating responsible feedback that addresses academic integrity issues in an efficient and constructive manner. Plagiarism has strong negative connotations at academic level, and action is required, but the questions are: What kind of actions? How can instructors use plagiarism as another tool to motivate and guide their students? In which way should plagiarism be used for constructive learning and not as a way to punish students? We think that the answer is responsible feedback. We explore the use of plagiarism as a constructive tool that can make a difference in the learning experience, and we aim to offer an initial view on how instructors could transition from using plagiarism cases to punish their students towards and approach that is more constructive and positive.