Academia.edu

Academia.edu has over 19,00,00 researchers attached to it and using the site to connect, share and challenge the control of journals.

A social network 

In 2008, Academia.edu was launched as a social networking site aimed at academics and tertiary educators.

Fred Imam’s 2008 review of it noted that through this site, you’ll be able to use the many advantages of social networking to allow academics from universities around the world to create profiles and make connections with their peers. “It’s a very useful tool, as it will allow universities to find qualified individuals to dictate some courses or lectures,” he said, “There was a need for a site like this, were college faculty could gather and find out more about their peers from other campuses.

Part of this social networking experience is the creation of an online profile. Miriam Posner’s article on The Chronicle of Higher Learning, she says that “the advantage of Academia.edu is that it’s a network that speaks the language of academe and is set up to provide you a profile that is explicitly professional.”

Wayne Barry notes that this may benefit staff, but the message may be lost on undergraduates. “This was something that I picked up in my own researches into learning spaces, except that students used these technologies to communicate with their peers for support, not with their family or friends (external to the University),” he said.

An ‘open source’

Another feature of Academia.edu is that it allows academics to upload their papers online and they can be accessed for free by other users. It is therefore an ‘open source’ for academic papers and this has had a greater impact on the academic community.

Academia.edu has intentionally aligned itself with the concepts of free information. In his blog profile, CEO and founder of the site, Richard Price states that “The goal of Academia.edu is to get every science PDF ever written on the internet, accessible for free,” he said, “We want to make science faster and more open.”

Publishing houses are fighting back against a service that impacts their cash-flow. In 2013, Elsevier served take-down notices to Academia.edu as well as serveral universities to remove papers put up by the academics who had written them.

Price has written articles on the future of peer review, where academics are able to utilise networks to respond to papers produced and by extension, academics can become credible far more quickly.

In particular, the ability to see who is reading ones paper and visualise those analytics and are important ways to measure academic credibility. “Academics are increasingly including these real time metrics in their applications for jobs and for grants,” said Price “The competition for jobs, and grants is intense, and having more data that speaks to the impact of your work helps.”

How To Check Plagiarism Online

Plagiarism is one of the issues that higher education has had to face for a long time.

The case of Lwazi Mzozoyana as one of “SA’s worst campus cheat” has pushed plagiarism into the public eye. Mzozoyana has been suspended from Rhodes University until 2022 for stealing the work of others and handing them in as his own.

Information passes so freely online that willing and unwilling plagiarism is easier. Wikipedia has given many teachers, lecturers and professors headaches since its inception due to the fact that it is an open-source encyclopedia. While sites such as EssayOnlineService.org allow you to buy an essay.

Mzozoyana’s case involved stealing others works and submitting them as his own.  In a post to the Monitor Bridget Murray states that plagiarism rates are high in American universities and that more lecturers are turning to checking students work on Internet programmes.

These programmes can also be used by graduates to double-check their work against unknowing plagiarism.

Some of the Plagiarism Checkers

Turnitin: Used by Rhodes university, it calls itself the “global leader in evaluating student work” and is licensed by institutions around the world. This is a cloud-based programme and is designed to aid mainly lecturers and professors. It requires a paid sum per educator and you can request a quote on their website.

Viper: Markets itself as the “free alternative to the well known plagiarism scanner ‘Turnitin’”. Viper argues that unlike Turnitin, you have an unlimited document length, you get a side-by-side analysis and links to the plagiarized work. They also offer an essay marking service for a fee of around R400.

iThenticate:  is free to sign up for but requires ‘credits’ for work to be checked. Credits are bought from the site and does not add your work to the database. iThenticate promotes privacy in terms of what you upload so no one can check the results of ones plagiarism test. There is also the option of document to document comparison but is only available in the annual licensing edition.

plagiarismchecker.com: this is a free service but it is limited to phrases and sentences. The site also offers a function to check a webpage for plagiarism. Created by Darren Hom, a middle-school teacher, the site also offers advice on how to report plagiarism found online.

checkforplagiarism.net: is a paid plagiarism checker service that emphasises privacy and security for its users. It makes an argument that paid service is superior to free services because you can check not only websites but have comprehensive reports connecting also journals, books and other hard copies. Their site is well designed and easy to use as well as full of extra information.

How To Get a Degree Online

One of the major options for postgraduate students is gaining a degree or diploma via online means. There are a number of universities that offer online courses or correspondence courses that are now facilitated by ICTs.

The South African Institute for Distance Education or SAIDE focus on developing open distance learning in SA. They note that the role of ICTs is changing the dace of education. The organisation has been a part of different development strategies across Africa and have projects such as  the Siyaphumelela programme and the African teacher education network.

In 2014,  Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Bonginkosi Emmanuel Nzimande released a policy for the provision of Distance Learning (ODL) where he stressed “that Distance education is an appealing and flexible option particularly for mature and mid-career students, and not least for students with disabilities which make access to contact education difficult
or impossible”.

If you want to get a degree online, one of the biggest options you should consider is the University of South Africa or UNISA. They are a  offer both vocational and academic courses so you could get a doctorate in Economics or do a National Certificate in Education.

The UNISA is an institute of ODL and the experience is an education largely mediated by online. Although lecturers well send students a study pack via courier, there are online e-tutorials that can be done and submissions can be uploaded on the MyUnisa network.

The courier or post option is still available to students who can afford the cost.   In their handbook,  Unisa tuition as limited to group discussion classes or tutorials as may be scheduled for the module. Tuition is provided through print-based format (except in the case of modules offered solely online), multimedia and online through the myUnisa student portal. Unfortunately one cannot access their Internet, Electronic Communication and Web Management Policy without being enrolled.

Another correspondence learning institute in South Africa is Damelin College. It offers national certificates, professional programmes and the Damelin correspondence programmes. Assignments are posted or are emailed to the college and you can register an time of the year.

University of Pretoria also offers open distance degree for BEd(Hons) degree in Education Management, Law and Policy. The department helps students by distributing learning material and processes assignments and examination papers.

University of Cape Town is offering a free online course or massive open online course (MOOC) on Medicine and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare. The course is based around lecture videos, online quizzes and forum discussions but you would not receive accreditation from UCT. Another option is a postgraduate Diploma in Management (Marketing) as an online course.