Friday, 27 June 2014

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

Bakhtiyari, K.; Salehi, H.; Embi, M.A.; Shakiba, M.; Zavvari, A.; Shahbazi-Moghadam, M.; Ale Ebrahim, N.; Mohammadjafari, M. (2014) Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing. International Education Studies, 7 (7). pp. 52-62. ISSN 1913-9020

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Abstract

This
paper discusses plagiarism origins, and the ethical solutions to
prevent it. It also reviews some unethical approaches, which may be used
to decrease the plagiarism rate in academic writings. We propose eight
ethical techniques to avoid unconscious and accidental plagiarism in
manuscripts without using online systems such as Turnitin and/or
iThenticate for cross checking and plagiarism detection. The efficiency
of the proposed techniques is evaluated on five different texts using
students individually. After application of the techniques on the texts,
they were checked by Turnitin to produce the plagiarism and similarity
report. At the end, the "effective factor" of each method has been
compared with each other; and the best result went to a hybrid
combination of all techniques to avoid plagiarism. The hybrid of ethical
methods decreased the plagiarism rate reported by Turnitin from nearly
100 to the average of 8.4 on 5 manuscripts.

Item Type:	Article
Creators:	Bakhtiyari, K. Salehi, H. Embi, M.A. Shakiba, M. Zavvari, A. Shahbazi-Moghadam, M. Ale Ebrahim, N. Mohammadjafari, M.
Journal or Publication Title:	International Education Studies
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Plagiarism, Plagiarism Prevention, Academic Cheating, Ethical Approaches, Unethical Approaches
Subjects:	A General Works L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education L Education > LC Special aspects of education
Divisions:	Faculty of Engineering
Depositing User:	Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2014 14:11
Last Modified:	25 Jun 2014 14:11
URI:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/10665

UM Research Repository

Thursday, 26 June 2014

"How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)" by Nader Ale Ebrahim

How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)

Nader Ale Ebrahim, Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya

Abstract

Writing an article for online distribution in a way that maximized
the chances of citation hits, is different from preparing one for print
journals in some small, but important, respects. To be cited, articles
have to be visible in an electronic environment. Therefore, publishing a
high quality paper in scientific journals will be a halfway of
receiving citation in the future. The rest of the way is advertising and
disseminating the publications by using the proper “Research Tools”.
Familiarity with the tools allows the researcher to increase his/her
h-index in the short time. This article provides a list of simple yet
effective ways to promote your publications

Suggested Citation

Nader Ale Ebrahim. "How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)" University of Malaya Research Bulletin Jun. 2014: 38-38.

Available at: http://works.bepress.com/aleebrahim/88

"How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)" by Nader Ale Ebrahim

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

PDF - Published Version [error in script]
Download (429Kb) | Preview

Official URL: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ies/artic...

Abstract

Item Type:	Article
Creators:	Bakhtiyari, K. Salehi, H. Embi, M.A. Shakiba, M. Zavvari, A. Shahbazi-Moghadam, M. Ale Ebrahim, N. Mohammadjafari, M.
Journal or Publication Title:	International Education Studies
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Plagiarism, Plagiarism Prevention, Academic Cheating, Ethical Approaches, Unethical Approaches
Subjects:	A General Works L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education L Education > LC Special aspects of education
Divisions:	Faculty of Engineering
Depositing User:	Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2014 14:11
Last Modified:	25 Jun 2014 14:11
URI:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/10665

UM Research Repository

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Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs

Page 1

Global Journal of Finance and Management.

ISSN 0975-6477 Volume 6, Number 9 (2014), pp. 919-924

http://www.ripublication.com

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence

from Australian SMEs

Walied Askarzai, Yi-Chen Lan and Bhuvan Unhelkar

School of Business University of Western Sydney, NSW Australia

Abstract

Virtual Organisation (VO) status has been idealised as desirable, with

the lure of promised low production costs and work-home balance

amid other advantages. Many organisations have hastened to acquire a

reputation as VO and many more appear to be on the verge of

achieving this. However, the empirical results of this study suggest that

face-to-face interaction needs to be assured, along with other

traditional work values, lest such organisations risk losing employee

support.

Keywords: Virtual Organisation, SMEs, Virtual Employees

1. Introduction

The VO is acquiring growing reputation through the omnipresent technologies of the

Internet, a globalised workforce, decentralised management structure and freelancing

spirits of the employees. Increasingly, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)

see the VO concept as a way to shift from organisational rigidity.

Yet how the VO is perceived by employees is something that should not be

overlooked. Despite extensive research there is not even a single study that adequately

covers the ways Virtual Employees (VE) perceive Virtual Management (VM). This

study addresses the question of how Virtual Employees (VEs) as opposed to Non-

Virtual Employees (NVEs) perceive VO and Virtual Management. Through the use of

in depth semi-structured interviews the study addresses the question, “Are VEs more

contented than NVEs?”

Page 2

Walied Askarzai et al

920

2. Literature Review

For the purpose of this study the term VO refers to the VM being undertaken within

VO. Hence for the sake of practicality, we have used the two terms interchangeably.

Askarzai [1] defines Virtual Organisation as a type of temporary or permanent

organisation with geographically and time-dispersed members (individuals,

departments or organisations). The members share their core-competencies towards the

production of a product that cannot be achieved by a standalone member. Core

competencies refer to the main strengths of an organisation that can be utilised as

competitive advantage. The operation of VO is enabled by Computer Mediated

Communication (CMC). CMC refers to communication processes where computer-

mediated technologies are used as a medium. CMC is divided into two synchronic

states; asynchronous (different-time) communication, such as e-mails, and

synchronous (same-time) communication, such as video conferencing. The essence of

a VO is process management and customer satisfaction.

Although Virtual Operation was formerly reserved to large organisations, it now

promises lower production costs, competitive advantage and focus on core

competencies for SMEs. However, collaboration with marketing agencies, accounting

firms and IT services is needed to take full advantage of what VO offers [2]. Full or

partial transformation to VO status can enable sharing of knowledge and resources

over a wide geographical area. VO has been seen as a way for SMEs to increase their

competitiveness [5]. The Virtual Organisation can be a strategic tool for an SME to

reach foreign markets [6].

A considerable amount of literature has been published on VO. However, far too

little attention has been paid to understand the perception of VEs towards VM.

Perception is a process of interpreting and giving meaning to one’s surroundings in

order to make judgements and decisions. Perception may differ from reality [7, 8 & 9].

Factors that shape one’s perception are three dimensional: there are factors within the

perceiver, factors in the object and factors in the environment [7].

The objectives of this research are to determine whether or not VEs are more

contented than NVEs and what then can VOs do to create perception of a good work

environment by VEs?

3. Methodology

Various methods have been developed to determine employee perception of

management; for the present project, it was decided to conduct in-depth semi-

structured interviews. Nine VEs and nine NVEs volunteers participated in the study.

The participants were randomly recruited from SMEs located in Greater Western

Sydney, the fastest growing region in New South Wales, where SMEs play a major

role [10]. VE and NVE are used as codes for the two groups of participants. Thematic

analysis was used to analyse the interviews.

Page 3

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs 921

4. Results and Discussion

Six NVEs had a positive perception of their organisation and management, as

evidenced in the following NVE statements:

“The organisation is conscious of environment and safety of employees” (NVE 1).

“The organisation provides me greater choice in learning and development and areer

progression” (NVE 4).

“Management is supportive and consultative” (NVE 8).

Three NVEs had a negative perception, as evidenced by the following statements:

“The organisation does not invest in innovation and its people” (NVE ).

“Management conflict of opinions does take place—the stronger party wins, but

the stronger party is not stronger by numbers but by position” (NVE 9).

\Seven VEs had positive perception of their organisation and management, as

evidenced by the following VE statements:

“I do like the VM scenario” (VE 2).

“VM is a feature of future work-environment” (VE 1,VE 2 and VE 5).

“The benefits of VM are very useful” (VE 8).

“I perceive VM as very positive”(VE 9).

Two VEs had negative perception of their organisation and management (i.e. VM):

“I don’t like virtual management” (VE 2).

“VM will not take the place of face-to-face work. VM can be seen to be inefficient

sometimes” (VE 7).

The benefits of VM were perceived positively by all nine VEs. For example:

“Work flexibility, working out of office hours, working independently, working

more freely and better work-life balance” (VE 1, VE 2, VE 5, VE 8, VE9) were among

the benefits of VM.

Overall the VEs were more content than the NVEs. However, the VEs were still

concerned about some aspects of traditional work environment, in particular face-to-

face interaction with co-workers. For example: “VM will not take the place of face-to-

face work” (VE 7).

Furthermore, five VEs cited lack of face-to-face interaction as a major downside of

VM and wanted some kind of face-to-face interaction in the VM context. Five VEs

stressed that their team norms and culture had been affected by VM:

“Team culture is difficult to keep strong after VM” (VE 1).

“Team culture has been affected after VM” (VE 5, VE 8 & VE 9).

The results of this study corroborate findings of previous work in this field, for

instance, [Biglow 11, Brown et al. 12, Cisco 13, Derven 14, Ebrahim et al. 15, Foti 16,

Gupta et al.17, Hunsaker & Hunsaker 18, Intranet Focus 19, Mulki et al. 20, RW

Culture Wizard 21, Sundin 22, Pang 23, Vinaja 24].

Page 4

Walied Askarzai et al

922

5. Conclusion

This empirical study highlights the need for VOs to maintain aspects of a traditional

work environment. Face-to-face interaction appears to be vital in the shift from non-

virtual to VM.

References

[1] Askarzai, W. Outline of a Process Model for Virtual Organisations: A

Research Perspective, IJBMT 2013; 3 (6).

[2] Van den Berg, E. Outsourcing for SMEs, Information on ProQuest Central

database.

[3] Thomson, A, Stone, A & Ion, W. Enabling Creative Virtual Teams in SMEs,

Information on www.irma-international.org/viewtitle/22168

[4] Ebrahim, NA, Ahmed, S & Taha, Z, Virtual R & D teams in small and

medium enterprises: A literature review, Scientific Research and Essays 2012,

4 (13), pp. 1575-1590.

[5] Pihkala, P, Varamaki, E & Versalainen. Virtual organisation and the SMEs: a

review and model development, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development:

An International Journal 1999; 11(4), pp.335-349.

[6] Hassouneh, D & Brengman, Virtual worlds: A gateway for SMEs toward

internationalisation, Journal of Brand Management 2011; 19, pp. 72–90.

[7] Robbins, S, P., & Judge, T, A. Organisational Behaviour (12

ed.) 2007; New

Jersey: Prentice Hall.

[8] Buchanan, D. A., & Huczynski, A. A. Organisational Behaviour (7

ed.)

2010; UK: Pearson.

[9] Smith, P. E., Yellowley, W., & Farmer, M. Organisational Behaviour, 2010;

London: Hodder Education.

[10] University of Western Sydney. SMExcellence, Information on

http://www.uws.edu.au/mtd/strategy_and_planning/what_we_are/responsive_

and_results-oriented/smexcellence..

[11] Biglow, D. Challenges to the Virtual Organisation, 2000; Information on

www.pmir.com/html/pmdatabase/file/articles/challenges.pdf

[12] Brown, M. K., Huettner, B., & Tanny, C. J. Managing Virtual Teams: Getting

the Most from Wikis, blogs and other Collaborative Tools, 2007; Texas:

Wordware Publishing, Inc.

[13] Cisco, A Study: Understanding and Managing the Mobile Workforce, 2007;

Information on newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/.../MobileWorkforce_071807

[14] Derven, M. The remote connection: Leading others from a distance requires

set expectations, trust, and unique methods of evaluation 2007; Information on

www.docstoc.com › ... › Periodicals › Business & Economics

[15] Ebrahim, N. A., Ahmed, S., & Taha, Z. Virtual Teams: a Literature Review

2009; Information on papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1501443

Page 5

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs 923

[16] Foti, L. Managing Virtual Employees 2009; Information on www.think-

train.com/timia/content/Virtual_Employees.pdf

[17] Hunsaker, P. L., & Hunsaker, J. S. Virtual teams: A leader's guide. Team

Performance Management, Emerald Insight 2009;14(1), 86-101.

[18] Gupta, V., Wiesenfeld, B., Garud, R., & Raghuram, S. Factors contributing to

virtual

work

adjustment

2001;

Information

scripts.cac.psu.edu/.../23.Journal%20of%20Management

[19] Intranet Focus. Managing Virtual Teams 2012; Information on

www.annualreviews.org

[20] Mulki, J., Bardhi, F., Lassk, F., & Nanavaty-Dahl, J. Set up remote workers to

thrive 2012; Information on sloanreview.mit.edu/article/set-up-remote-

workers-to-thrive.

[21] Peng, Q., Chung, C. Yu, C., & Luan, T. A networked virtual manufacturing

system

for

SMEs

2007;

Information

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09511920600877494.

[22] Sundin, K. Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges-Keeping Remote Employees

Enganged

2006;

Information

www.ilr.cornell.edu/.../Spring10Mtng_RemoteWorkersEngage

[23] RW Culture Wizard. The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams 2010;

Information on rw-3.com/VTSReportv7.pdf

[24] Vinaja, R. Major Challenges in Mutli-Cultural Virtual Teams 2003;

Information on www.sbaer.uca.edu/research/swdsi/2003/papers/068.pdf.

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs

Global Journal of Applied Environmental Sciences (GJAES)

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs

pp. 919-924

Authors: Walied Askarzai, Yi-Chen Lan and Bhuvan Unhelkar

Global Journal of Applied Environmental Sciences (GJAES), Computer Science Journals, Journals Publishers, Computer Science Journals in India, Indian Journals Subscription Agency, Indian Books Distributor

A Social Networking Website for AEC Projects (ASCE)

A Social Networking Website for AEC Projects

Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (2014)

Edited by Raymond Issa Issa, Ph.D., P.E.; and Ian Flood, Ph.D.

2014 International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering

Orlando, Florida, United States

June 23-25, 2014

ISBN (print): 978-0-7844-1361-6

Publisher: American Society of Civil Engineers

Mehrdad Niknam; and Saeed Karshenas

Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/9780784413616.274

ASCE Subject Headings: Automation, Computation

Architecture,
engineering and construction projects involve a number of individuals
and organizations with different roles and responsibilities. In a new
project, participants may initially not know each other; however, to be
effective, those with a common interest must be able to easily find each
other to share their knowledge about the project. Another requirement
for effectively managing a project is the ability to easily add new
knowledge to the project knowledgebase. The current format for
representing, accessing, and sharing project data cannot take advantage
of the full potential of the Internet. The Internet allows producing
distributed information that can be easily combined and shared. It is
also a powerful medium for communication among individuals with a common
interest who may not know each other. This paper presents a project
social networking website that facilitates professional interactions
among a project's participants and provides a dynamic project knowledge
base that would allow combining knowledge created during various phases
of a project lifecycle. The participants in a new project may join the
project website using OpenID. The project website uses a semantics-based
approach to information modeling that allows project website members to
add new knowledge to the project knowledge base and perform graph query
on project data. The project website members can tag any piece of
information in the project knowledge base to their social interactions.

A Social Networking Website for AEC Projects (ASCE)

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Friday, 27 June 2014

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

Abstract

Thursday, 26 June 2014

"How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)" by Nader Ale Ebrahim

How to Promote Your Article (43 ways to improve papers citations)

Abstract

Suggested Citation

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing

Abstract

Ebook Conversion API | Ebook Glue

Challenges of a Virtual Organisation: Empirical Evidence from Australian SMEs

Global Journal of Applied Environmental Sciences (GJAES)

A Social Networking Website for AEC Projects (ASCE)

A Social Networking Website for AEC Projects

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