HR and Plagiarism.

It has got to be 'HR = Human Retirement' not Human Resources. The course just makes you want to retire from the human race.

So, like you already know, I have progressed directly to the main MBA Programme after the Foundation course. The first module is Organizations and HR Management. It's about a comprehensive review of essential personnel management concepts and techniques, focusing on practical applications that all managers need to deal with their HR related responsibilities.
The course focuses with specific explanations and illustrations on essential HR management topics like job analysis, selection and recruitment, testing, training and development, compensation and performance appraisal.

All of that sounds pretty interesting right? WRONG! It is super boring! How students study an MSc or an MA in HR or IHRM (International Human Resource Management) and not attempt to take a rope and hang themselves in the process beats me.
The videos and sub-topics on recruitment, compensation and performance appraisal was ok for obvious reasons...but everything else is just bland. Don't get it wrong, it's not about the Tutor (A new Tutor per new module - This one has been great by the way) and how the course was presented...it is the course itself.  It was just a struggle. I dreaded opening a page every day...I eventually feel dizzy each time I do. I open the first page, I read...and like cotton candy, it so easily evaporated from my tongue's memory. I feel as though my brain is constantly engaged in weightlifting with each page.

To make matters even more complicated, I had to download a reading material...several pages, and all I read about had nothing to do with HR or a specific Organization. It was more about the emergence of Bitcoin, a digital currency in an economy. Hian! Oooooo! Which one is this one again???
I had to send an email to the Tutor because I was certain I had downloaded the wrong reading material, and had wasted 2 hours of my time reading it.
The response from the Tutor gave me an instant migraine. He did say I downloaded the right reading material, and I was on course. I wanted to send another email, asking what the emergence of digital currency had to do with HR...but felt watching Africa Magic Hausa (on DSTV) at this point would best heal the ache in my head.

All of this would have been a walk in the park if Plagiarism isn't just an issue in other places of the world besides Nigeria (Someone once said 'Nigeria has no moral compass when it comes to Plagiarism'...do you agree?). All I'll have to do when given an assignment deadline is copy and paste someone else's work without giving credit and pass it of as mine and score 98% abi? (Shake my head) Not here. Academic Integrity is KEY.
It reminded me of my final year at the University when I was struggling with the first chapter of my thesis, and a friend who was a Communication and Language Arts major was already done with her thesis in the first week of it's opening!
She was gracious enough to hand me a copy to read. On opening the first page where you dedicate the success of the thesis to someone or some inspiration...let me pause here... (Sips zobo from my mickey mouse branded mug)...I just remembered a former room mate back then at the University, who wrote on her thesis dedication page:

'This project is dedicated to my one and only true love, the wind beneath my wings, the only one that believed in me, that this day would come...Afe so no mi, Ayomide xxxxxxxx I love you. This is to us. Now and Forever.'

Odiegwu! The things we do for love. I thought it was silly at the time. Little wonder, 6 months later, the Bobo - Ayomide was engaged to be married to someone else. Choi! :-)

Back to the Communication and Language Arts major...I noticed on the dedication page that she dedicated the thesis to her late mum. Late mum? (Shocked) She had only just returned from Lagos a few days before, and showed me the 'janded' wrist watch her mum gave to her. How could her mum have passed on and she has been 'balling' since she arrived?
Well, apparently, her mum is still alive and well...till this day (I had with a strenuous loyalty, kept in touch through the years...thanks to social media), she only used someone's thesis written way back in 1990, took it to the printers; all they did was change the name, course, matriculation number and the cover (from black to green), and she passed it off as her's. It was the mum of the writer of the original work that had died...not her's. She didn't have the patience to edit that and she got 83% for that thesis.
Life!

Plagiarism is not handled lightly in other parts of the world. The student could fail that course or would be expelled from the University. There is a software called Turnitin that assists in ensuring you're not a literary thief in the making. When you're done with an assignment, it's best you pass it through Turnitin, as it detect similarities in your work with other writers. A high similarity, say 50%...that one is a literary thief o! 10% is not suspicious due to references and quotes.
They're not saying can't use other people's work, they're saying when you do (to the barest minimum though, as they would want you to think and write your own ideas and thoughts about a subject matter), give credit, reference correctly with quotation marks etc.

Universities in Nigeria and Plagiarism...what do you think? For your first degree, how did you go about your final thesis? You plagiarized anyhow abi? 'Copy and paste tinz?' :-)

Any HR majors in the house? How did you cope with the course o! This module wants to strangle me. Help oooo!!!!

Let's share ideas and talk all about it in the comment section!!!

Till next week Sunday (God willing)...the more we share...the more we have.