Thematic analysis of anti-plagiarism software utilisation for authentication of students’ assignment and project writing in open, distance and eLearning

Abstract

The ODeL is a blended application of the conventional pedagogy and information and communication technologies (ICTs) to deliver  quality education remotely to students. It places at its core, an online classroom for delivering instructions through facilitation of access  to seasoned tutors and multimedia information resources for engaged learning and academic work by students. This paper explores  existing studies on the types and the use of anti-plagiarism software for checking ODeL students’ assignment and project writing  through deductive thematic analysis. n=422 scholarly articles were sieved from the Google scholar search engine, manageable and  analysed using six basic steps of familiarization with the studies, coding, and themes construction from the studies, reviewing themes,  defining the themes and writing thematic analysis to identify themes on anti-plagiarism software used in ODeL and challenges. It was revealed that the types of anti-plagiarism software used for authenticating ODeL students’ assignments and projects are categorized into  open source that are freely available and the commercial ones which require subscription and authorization to use. The plagiarism  detection software mostly used in ODeL universities around the globe is Turnitin followed by iThenticate. The least used is My Drop Box,  other fairly used ones are Plagiarisma, Plag Scan, Copy Leak and WordCHECK. Some of the notable challenges that aid plagiarism are, not  understanding when to cite authors in works and wide access to the Internet. The least challenge has to do with inability to format  citation and references. Other notable challenges are not having appropriate information literacy skills training, lack of ability to do  “information synthesis and lack of motivation. It was concluded and recommended that, ODeL institutions must harness resources to  address the growing cases of unethical use of intellectual literary works of authors by the students in their assignments and projects.  They should do so approaching the challenge by providing enabling policies, technology and cooperation. The policy must include  training and embedded programmes for ODeL students, educators and other relevant stakeholders to ensure uniformity and promotion  of coordinated approach to ethical teaching and learning.