Document Type

presentation

Disciplines

Health Sciences and Medical Librarianship

Abstract

Background: Maintaining academic integrity is a priority for professional pharmacy programs, but fitting this topic into the curriculum can be a challenge. In the absence of a medical writing course, our institution uses a drug information course to introduce students to the topic of avoiding plagiarism. The professor of this course approached their librarian for ideas on improving the way this topic had historically been presented. The librarian used an existing resource to build a LibWizard tutorial on avoiding plagiarism that is tailored to the PharmD curriculum.

Description: The tutorial includes 24 slides that present information and are accompanied by knowledge check questions. The tutorial is completed asynchronously by the students and then discussed in a synchronous class session. Concepts covered include but are not limited to: defining plagiarism, unintentional plagiarism, incorporating common knowledge and opinions, referring to sources in written work, using images, fair use, detecting plagiarism, and consequences of plagiarism. We also point out that common knowledge within the pharmacy field is different versus that of the general population. After the appearance of various AI chatbots in recent years, we felt it was important to add a slide on guidelines for using these tools in an academic setting. The tutorial has been used by three PharmD classes since Fall 2021 (286 submissions). It also has come to serve as a source that any student or professor in the school can use as a refresher when plagiarism issues arise.

Conclusion: We will present selected slides from the tutorial and discuss general trends regarding topics that the students understood well and what they appeared to struggle with, including what constitutes plagiarism and incorporating sources via quotation, paraphrase, and summary.

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