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Academic Integrity in an Electronic World: Student Cheating and Plagiarism
November 9, 2010Brown Bag
The University of Arizona
http://oia.arizona.edu
How prevalent is academic dishonesty?
It appears to be a significant problem.
• Donald McCabe – surveys of student and faculty 1990 – present
• Recent work by others on online/blended courses vs. face-to-face
Examinations:
21% students admit to copying, use of crib notes or helping someone to cheat on an exam
33% admit to learning what is on an exam from someone who has already taken it
(2005 McCabe)
Written Assignments:42% of undergrads and 26% of grads worked with
others when asked for individual work
36% undergrads report copying from a web source without citation
59% of faculty report seeing cases of word-for-word copying without citation; 7% of undergrads and 4% of grads report doing this
(2005 McCabe)
Other assignments:
19% of undergrads report falsifying lab data at least once
39% faculty observed students copying someone else’s work for a required computer programming assignment
(2005 McCabe)
Do online courses have less integrity?Lack of physical contact increases doubt about
identity of student, possible use of a stand-in.
Students perceive cheating in online courses to be as frequent as or greater than in face-to-face. (Harmon et al 2010)
Heavy reliance on un-proctored multiple-choice exams may increase possibility of cheating.
What do we see at The University of Arizona?
What types of violations have you observed in the last 3 years?
Do you observe an increase in certain types of violations?
Do you use unproctored mutiple choice OR written short answer/essay exams? Why or why not?
Promote integrityDefine cheating.
“Over 40% of undergraduates and 30% of graduate students (and almost 20% of faculty) are … not convinced that ‘cut and paste’ plagiarism is moderate or serious cheating.”
“Unpermitted collaboration is a particularly difficult issue.” (McCabe 2005)
Do not ignore suspected violations.
What tactics or strategies have you found (in) effective for promoting academic integrity?
Does a positive peer culture (McCabe and
Pavela) exist at the U of A with regard to academic integrity?
What tactics or strategies have you found (in) effective for promoting academic integrity?
Does a positive peer culture (McCabe and
Pavela) exist at the U of A with regard to academic integrity?
Prevent violationsUse question shuffling tactics.• Multiple versions of exams & randomization of
questions and answers (D2L can create a unique exam for each student.)
• Selective reuse of previous exam questions
Use creative and varied forms of assessment.
Carefully consider the percentage-of-final grade of any single assignment—especially an unproctored exam.
Prevent violationsCreate MC-type (and written) exams that
test higher order thinking skills.
Proctor examinations.• Outreach College can help with online courses.
Will this be a temporal, physical or financial barrier for students?
n.b. Seating arrangements may not be effective.
Detect violations
Use TurnItIn plagiarism detection software.• Integrated into D2L dropbox• Similarity report for each written assignment
Analyze D2L quiz log of events.• Are there long “gaps” between login, submission or
saves?• Do you see sequential login of pairs of students from
the same computer?
Case study: NATS101The Challenge: mid-term and final examinations• 182 students, 2 graduate teaching assistants, 4 lecturers
The Plan:• 3 versions of Part 1 of the exam: online objective test,
randomized questions and answers• 3 versions of Part 2 of exam: essay questions; answers to
be uploaded to D2L dropbox and reviewed by TurnItIn
Limited access to exam• Students had to login inside of a 15 minute “start period.”• They had 30 minutes to complete Part 1. Once a student
completed Part 1, s/he could access Part 2 for 30 minutes. Deadline was not automatically enforced for Part 2.
What happened?
What changes will be made?
Gretchen [email protected]
520-626-2621
Office of Instruction and Assessment
at The University of
Arizona
Manual Pacheco Integrated Learning Center520-626-2621
Fax 520-626-8220
http://oia.arizona.edu
