Just as with in-class delivery, Issues of academic dishonesty may arise in remote instruction. Encouraging academic honesty involves both mitigating or preventing instances of cheating while also educating and informing students about academic integrity.
1. Use online tools to promote academic integrity
Our digital tools and online platforms can help to adapt strategies that we would typically implement for in-class assessments. There are resources and tools that can help you to prevent academic dishonesty whether you are offering an online exam or assigning a final project or paper.
Tools
- eClass (eClass quizzing)
- Microsoft Teams
Resources
Best practices
- eClass quizzes offers multiple versions of the same exam, shuffling questions, using a random subset of questions from a question bank, displaying one question at a time, restricting what feedback is available immediately to students (e.g. correct answers), and limiting the duration and/or availability of the test or attempts students have to complete the exam.
- Turnitin is available as a means to review student assignments for plagiarism.
- If students are completing final papers or projects that require them to refer to a variety of external articles or other resources, ensure that you require students to cite their sources to help mitigate concerns regarding plagiarism.
2. Structure assessments to encourage higher order thinking
Assignments and exams that rely on higher order thinking (e.g. analyze, synthesize, reflect) encourage students to rely on displaying original, unique thoughts rather than relying solely on memory or recall to choose a single, correct answer.
Tools
Course design template
Resources
- Research guides
- Refer to Organize Your Course and Assess and Provide Feedback sections
Best practices
- Consider offering students multiple means of expressing or demonstrating their knowledge, emphasizing strategies that encourage novel ways of sharing information that are less easily copied or shared.
- Where possible, consider offering an open book test or exam, especially if your learning outcomes rely on discussion, description, and analysis or synthesis rather than memory or recall.
3. Educate your students about academic integrity
In times of stress, or when adapting to a new learning environment, students may be less likely to recognize that what they are doing to complete an assignment or exam is considered a breach of academic integrity. It will be important to remind students that the same rules apply around academic integrity, no matter where or how they are learning.
Tools
- eClass (posting resources/honour codes)
Resources
Best practices
- Post information about York’s policies on academic integrity on your eClass site, or provide students with an honour code statement they must review and agree to before submitting work online.
- Example (Faculty of Science): By completing and submitting this exam, you acknowledge that you have read this policy, and that you have completed this exam individually and have not used or referred to any unauthorized aid, including plagiarized information from other sources, nor has anyone else written or assisted you with this exam. Should you be found to have referred to or used any unauthorized aid, or that you did not complete this exam individually, you will be in breach of York’s Senate Policy on Academic Honesty. You also acknowledge that this exam is copyrighted which means you cannot put any test questions in the public domain without the permission of the instructor.
- Be compassionate and flexible (within reason) when supporting students to help mitigate the stress and pressure that tends to precede instances of academic dishonesty.
- Report any suspicions of academic dishonesty to your Dean, Associate Dean, and/or UPD/GPD. Each Faculty and Department or School have their own procedures and protocol.
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