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Teaching Students about Plagiarism Using a Serious Game: Design of Plagi-Warfare
Abejide Ade-Ibijola;
Keagan Young;
Nashik Sivparsad;
Mpho Seforo;
Suhail Ally;
Adebola Olowolafe;
Maria Frahm-Arp
ABSTRACT
Background:
Educational games have been proven to support the teaching of various concepts across disciplines. Plagiarism is a major problem amongst undergraduate and postgraduate students at universities.
Objective:
In this paper, we have proposed a game called Plagi-Warfare that attempts to teach students at these levels about plagiarism.
Methods:
To do this at a level that is beyond quizzes, we have proposed a game storyline and mechanics that allows the player (or student) to play as a mafia or a detective that either demonstrates their knowledge by plagiarising for students within the game as a mafia or catching plagiarists within the game as detectives. The game plays out in 3D environments, representing the major libraries at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Results:
Evaluation of the game mechanics and storyline show that the student gamers enjoyed the game and learned a lot about the educational content — plagiarism.
Conclusions:
A video of Plagi-Warfare during a game session can be found at: www.tinyurl.com/plagi-warfare.
Citation
Please cite as:
Ade-Ibijola A, Young K, Sivparsad N, Seforo M, Ally S, Olowolafe A, Frahm-Arp M
Teaching Students About Plagiarism Using a Serious Game (Plagi-Warfare): Design and Evaluation Study