Do we need to pay for services such as Turnitin? Are there comparable services for free? Do we need services such as those ones or we rather have faculty and students educated on plagiarism and faculty trained to detect plagiarism? Is it supposed to be a “mechanical” process or educational activity?
These questions following a posting of today from the Educause Blended and Online Learning Group
Are any of you using a non-Turnitin plagiarism checker that you’re happy with (besides Google or Grammarly’s free service)?
Thanks,
Jenn Stevens (she, her, hers)
Director, Instructional Technology Group
403C Walker Building
Emerson College | 120 Boylston St | Boston, MA 02116
(617) 824-3093
At Ursinus, we use PlagScan, which is affordable and meets our needs.
We haven’t been able to get it to fully integrate within our LMS yet but hopefully we will be able to soon.
Christine Iannicelli
Instructional Technology Librarian
Library and IT
Library 124
Phone: 610-409-3466 ciannicelli@ursinus.edu
Twenty years have passed since renowned Harvard Professor Larry Lessig coined the phrase “Code is Law”, suggesting that in the digital age, computer code regulates behavior much like legislative code traditionally did.These days, the computer code that powers artificial intelligence (AI) is a salient example of Lessig’s statement.
Good AI requires sound data.One of the principles,some would say the organizing principle, of privacy and data protection frameworks is data minimization.Data protection laws require organizations to limit data collection to the extent strictly necessary and retain data only so long as it is needed for its stated goal.
Preventing discrimination – intentional or not.
When is a distinction between groups permissible or even merited and when is it untoward? How should organizations address historically entrenched inequalities that are embedded in data? New mathematical theories such as “fairness through awareness” enable sophisticated modeling to guarantee statistical parity between groups.
Assuring explainability – technological due process.In privacy and freedom of information frameworks alike, transparency has traditionally been a bulwark against unfairness and discrimination.As Justice Brandeis once wrote, “Sunlight is the best of disinfectants.”
Deep learning means that iterative computer programs derive conclusions for reasons that may not be evident even after forensic inquiry.
Yet even with code as law and a rising need for law in code, policymakers do not need to become mathematicians, engineers and coders.Instead, institutions must develop and enhance their technical toolbox by hiring experts and consulting with top academics, industry researchers and civil society voices.Responsible AI requires access to not only lawyers, ethicists and philosophers but also to technical leaders and subject matter experts to ensure an appropriate balance between economic and scientific benefits to society on the one hand and individual rights and freedoms on the other hand.
The writer Zadie Smith laid into identity politics in a headline session at the 14th Hay Cartagena festival, insisting novelists had not only a right, but a duty to be free.
She conceded that the assertion of a collective identity was sometimes necessary “to demand rights”, but cited the dismay of her husband – the poet and novelist Nick Laird – at finding himself increasingly categorised. “He turned to me and said: ‘I used to be myself and I’m now white guy, white guy.’ I said: ‘Finally, you understand.’
She went on to question the role of social media in policing personal development.
to the issue of political correctness, she reflected on her debut novel White Teeth, which had depicted characters from many backgrounds but, she said, had been given an easy ride by the white critics because “[its characters] were mostly brown.
citing Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary as an example of the power of the reprobate imagination. “Women have felt very close to these fake, pretend women invented by men. It makes us feel uncomfortable in real life. This is not real life. It’s perverse, but it’s what’s possible in fiction. There’s no excuse for its irresponsibility, but fiction is fundamentally irresponsible.”
These tools are used not only to lock down your security and anonymity on the known internet, but also to access the portions of the internet that are normally hidden — “The Dark Web.”
TAILS is an acronym for “The Amnesic Incognito Live System.”
TAILS is a highly-secure operating system (and a host of cool applications) designed to be booted off of a DVD or USB thumb drive. This not only makes TAILS easy to transport, but also ensures that TAILS can be booted and instantly useful from nearly any PC, Mac, or Chromebook. TAILS is built on Linux, a name you might recognize because it’s a popular, free, and open-source operating system that’s been available since 1991. TAILS, in particular, runs on a variant of Linux known as “Debian,” which became available in 1996.
Third and most importantly, when setup correctly, TAILS helps ensure that all of your communications — email, web browsing, chat, and more — are encrypted, made anonymous, and then routed in such a way that it’s extremely difficult to detect or trace them.
Its unique approach to offering such well-regarded security is the creative use of two virtual machines (or VMs) running in tandem on one host computer. One of these VMs is known as the Gateway while the other is known as the Workstation.
Compared to TAILS, Whonix only provides a few free, open-source applications and those need to be set up fairly extensively. The list includes:
The TOR browser, for safe web browsing
Firefox, for less secure web browsing
Icedove, for emailing, secured by the Enigmail extension to encrypt and authenticate emails using a well-know and secure protocol called “OpenPGP”
HexChat, for internet chats
VLC, to open and view every kind of video file that’s ever existed
Whether the NYC police angle is true or not (it’s being hotly disputed), Facebook and Google are thinking along lines that follow the whims of the Chinese Government.
SenseTime and Megvii won’t just be worth $5 Billion, they will be worth many times that in the future. This is because a facial recognition data-harvesting of everything is the future of consumerism and capitalism, and in some places, the central tenet of social order (think Asia).
China has already ‘won’ the trade-war, because its winning the race to innovation. America doesn’t regulate Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Facebook properly, that stunts innovation and ethics in technology where the West is now forced to copy China just to keep up.
Digital Fluency: Preparing Learners for 21st Century Digital Citizenship Eighty-five percent of the jobs available in 2030 do not yet exist. How does higher education prepare our learners for careers that don’t yet exist? One opportunity is to provide our students with opportunities to grow their skills in creative problem solving, critical thinking, resiliency, novel thinking, social intelligence, and excellent communication skills. Instructional designers and faculty can leverage the framework of digital fluency to create opportunities for learners to practice and hone the skills that will prepare them to be 21st-century digital citizens. In this session, join a discussion about several fluencies that comprise the overarching framework for digital fluency and help to define some of your own.
Dr. Jennifer Sparrow, Senior Director for Teaching and Learning with Technology and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Learning, Design, and Technology at Penn State. The webinar will take place on Friday, November 9th at 11am EST/4pm UTC (login details below)
how DF is different from DLiteracy? enable students define how new knowledge can be created through technology. Not only read and write, but create poems, stories, if analogous w learning a language. slide 4 in https://www.slideshare.net/aidemoreto/vr-library
communication fluency. be able to choose the correct media. curiosity/failure fluency; creation fluency (makerspace: create without soldering, programming, 3Dprinting. PLA filament-corn-based plastic; Makers-in-residence)
immersive fluency: video 360, VR and AR. enable student to create new knowledge through environments beyond reality. Immersive Experiences Lab (IMEX). Design: physical vs virtual spaces.
Data fluency: b.book. how to create my own textbook
rubrics and sample projects to assess digital fluency.
What is Instructional Design 2.0 or 3.0? deep knowledge and understanding of faculty development. second, once faculty understands the new technology, how does this translate into rework of curriculum? third, the research piece; how to improve to be ready for the next cycle. a partnership between ID and faculty.
“Trump effect” on bullying in schools, citing a study that found higher bullying rates in GOP districts after the 2016 presidential election.
The scientific evidence on what works is complicated.
For example, this 2007 review of anti-bullying programs found “little discernible effect on youth participants.”
twenty-some years of empirical research that shows punishing kids is unhelpful
Instead, he argues that schools should combine consequences for bullies with mediation, counseling or a learning experience.
School shootings and violence have prompted schools to take an even more punitive stance against student misbehavior, experts I talked to said.
the higher a school’s climate rating — that is, the more that students, parents and teachers think their school is a safe place where people are respected — the lower the bullying rates. Similarly, the higher the social-emotional skills, such as the ability to wait and not react impulsively, the lower the bullying rates. But what hasn’t been clearly proven is that improvements in school climate or social-emotional skills will necessarily lead to a reduction in bullying.
