A Tutorial with a Twist: How Plagiarism Advances Library Instruction

For more than 20 years the Lauinger Library staff at Georgetown University has taught students about library resources through a tutorial taken during the first few weeks of the fall semester. The tutorial provides a basic orientation to the library because there is no required class that has a library research instruction component for first-year students. Students build on the knowledge gained in the tutorial through courserelated Library instruction. Initially a print-based tour/tutorial, in 1999 the Library initiated an online, self-paced version. Students answered some questions online, but others they wrote on answer sheets that were checked by reference librarians. Although each of the undergraduate schools at Georgetown “required” that their students complete the library tutorial, there was no easy way to enforce compliance, and about 70% of students completed it.