Introduction to Online Assessment Continued:

Academic Integrity

By the end of this presentation you should be able to:

•  Describe academic integrity issues with online assessment and ways to prevent this

Academic Integrity

•  Now that you are familiar with online assessment, let’s review academic integrity in the online environment.

Academic Integrity

“Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest, and responsible manner.”

Penn State University

http://academicintegrity.cas.psu.edu/Statements.html

Academic Integrity Affects…

•  Reputation of the University/College

•  Reputation of the school’s alumni

•  Reputation of degrees awarded

•  The quality of education given

•  How emplyers view graduates

•  “Online students have less commitment to the integrity of distance programs than to traditional programs” (Bell & Whaley, 1991).

•  We have strategies to change this!

•  “The more distant people feel, the more likely they are to cheat” (George & Carlson, 1999).

•  So, how do we make students feel close?

Academic Dishonesty

•  Unfair advantage

•  Un-permitted collaboration

•  Student receiving help from another source

•  Plagiarism

•  Not the student’s own work

•  Reuse of student’s own work

Academic Dishonesty Statistics

•  75% of college students reported cheating during their enrollment (Dick, et al., 2003).

•  95% of students who reported cheating said they were never caught (Bushweller, 1999).

•  50% did not believe that cheating was necessarily wrong (Kleiner & lord, 1999).

•  Cheating increases with the age of the student up to 25 (Cizek, 1999).

Faculty and Student Definitions Differ

•  Students see it as: •  Helping each other

•  If most students are doing it or have a copy of the test, they think it is OK

•  If it is not for a grade, it is not cheating

•  “Cut and Paste” is not cheating

•  Reusing their own work is not cheating

Reasons for Academic Dishonesty

•  Lack of research or citation skills

•  Lack of understanding of the assignment, plagiarism, copyright laws

•  Did not understand it was cheating

•  Old tests are available

•  Easy to do/laziness

•  Instructor did little or nothing to prevent cheating and/or was reluctant to take action

•  Scholarship competition

•  Faculty do not recognize it

Experts Agree…

If an online course and assessments are well designed, cheating will not be a significant problem.

Do you agree?

Academic Integrity Approaches

•  Virtues Approach

•  Policing Approach

•  Preventative Approach

(Hinman, 2000)

Virtues Approach

•  Develop students who do not want to cheat. •  Use an honor code

•  Communicate the school policy, provide a link

•  Have students sign policies

•  Give an assignment on ethical decision-making

•  Give an assignment on plagiarism

Policing Approach

•  Catch and punish those who cheat. •  Examine course stats, content areas, day and time of

login, length of login, use of communication tools, etc.

•  Distrust “technical problems” excuses

•  Be prepared to retest with a different version

•  Be prepared for alternate assignments

Preventative Approach

•  Eliminate or reduce cheating opportunities. •  Clarify academic dishonesty and plagiarism

•  Change test items each year

•  Use detection software

•  Use different versions of the test

•  Reduce pressure to cheat by being flexible with deadlines

•  Reduce pressure to cheat by focusing on learning and not grades

Preventative Approach, continued

•  Use short assessments throughout the course

•  Small, sequential, student-centered personal responses

•  Have a high level of instructor/student interaction

•  Orient assessments towards higher order thinking skills

•  Design writing assessments with specific goals and instructions

•  Use personal real-life situations known only to the student and avoid trivial assignments

Preventative Approach, continued

•  Reduce opportunities to engage in academic dishonesty. •  Use assignments that are learner-centered

•  Promote the use of discussion boards

•  Use progressively developed assignments

•  Use reflective assignments

•  Use fair assessments

•  Allow open-book for online exams, quizzes, tests (McCabe & Pavela, Change 2000)

Preventative Approach, continued

•  Randomize questions or distractors

•  Use pools of questions or exam generator

•  Use timed or forced completion

•  Put one question per page

•  Prevent copy/print of online material

Your turn!

•  You will read a short article that deals with online academic dishonesty and write a short reaction. Please see discussion board 3 for details. •  A link to discussion board 3 can be found on in the

menu bar at the top of this webpage.

•  Return to this presentation once you have completed the assignment.

Summary •  You have been introduced to: •  Assessment •  Online Assessment versus Traditional Assessment •  Implementation Strategies (more will be covered) •  Learning Objectives •  Categories of Online Assessments •  The Assessment Triangle •  Academic Integrity in Online Environments

•  You are now ready to take the formative quiz over the content presented in this presentation. •  The quiz is located on the “quiz” link in the website menu bar.

•  Feel free to view this presentation again before taking the quiz.

References

•  Bell, J.B. and Whaley, B. (1991). Cheating and deception. New York: Translation Publishing.

•  Bushweller, K. (1999). Generation of Cheaters. The American School Board Journal. www.asbj.com/199904/0499coverstory.html

•  George, J. and Carlson, J. (1999). Group support systems and deceptive commuinication. 32nd Hawaii Intl. Conf. on Systems Sciences, 1038.

•  Hinman, L.M. (2000). Academic Integrity and the World Wide Web. http://ethics.acusd.edu/presentations/cai2000/index_fi les/frame.htm

•  Kleiner, C. and Lord, M. (1999). The cheating game: Cross-national exploration of business students’ attitudes, perceptions, and tendencies toward academic dishonesty. Journal of Education for Business. 74(4), 38-42.

•  www.adea.org/publications/library/.../bestpracticesforteachingonline.pdf

•  Resources from Dr. Kinuthia’s Fall 2014 Online Assessment Course