Ensuring Academic Integrity

How do you ensure that your students are being academically honest?

Tips to Reduce & Detect Violations of Academic Integrity

Design with Integrity in Mind

• Include academic integrity statement in course syllabus
• Create authentic assessments
  • Progressive (iterative) papers or scaffolded assignments
  • Require presentations as part of an assignment
  • Have them produce things only they could produce
• Alternate assessments from term to term or class to class
• Set up discussion board to prevent viewing of classmates' posts before posting
• Write test questions and activities for unique responses
• Test settings (randomize, question pools, time limits, display questions one at a time, limit question feedback)

Cheating During Remote Exams

• Proctoring centers can be used, but are all of your online students getting equal testing environments?
  • Not all proctors treat proctoring equally!
• Other options:
  • Respondus LockDown Browser can help, but can be easily circumvented!
  • Respondus Monitor with LockDown Browser is better, affordable option
• Examity is better yet, but requires a cost for students

Authenticity: Having another student take your exam for you

• How are we ensuring that the student is the one completing the exam?
• How are we authenticating our online students?
• Examity can be used to provide two-factor authentication
• Ask students to agree to an academic integrity statement before beginning a test or submitting an assignment:

"I verify I am the only one taking the exam and that no one is helping me physically or electronically. I won't copy the exam in whole or in part. I will refrain from discussing this exam with anyone until after the due date. I will adhere to the academic integrity policy."

Additional Resources

• Supporting Academic Honesty with Instructional Design (Adelphi University)
• Tips to Reduce Cheating the Impact of Cheating in Online Assessment (Northern Illinois University)
• Dealing with Cheating (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)