This resource covers ways to promote Academic Integrity by communicating through the syllabus or by having the talk with your students, through assessment design, and through information literacy.
Promoting Integrity
- Explain requirements and expectations for assessments
- Explain reason for these rules and how they make assessments fair for all.
- Avoid statements that focus on penalties only.
- Commit to following-up on concerns of academic misconduct.
- Strive for an open, supportive relationship with your students where AI may be discussed.
- Discuss and promote the value of learning itself.
- Reduce student anxiety and pressure through:
- reduced final assessment value,
- use of take home exams or open book exams, and
- share details relating to question types or topics on exams.
Assessment Design
Recommendations for assessment design to promote or maintain academic integrity include:
- Design Assessments:
- that scaffold students though the development of academically honest behaviours;
- that allow students to incorporate some of their own personal experience, ideas or reflections;
- to promote academic integrity should move from no-grade to low-stakes to high-stakes to support students as they develop their confidence over time; and
- use a personalized approach. These assessments can be small and sequential, with prompt feedback.
- Embed assessment into coursework and not form part of a stand-alone ‘academic integrity-type’ module.
- Provide feedback on the specific skills to be developed to students in a productive and timely way.
- Provide examples of ‘good’ responses to ensure that all students have the same understanding of academic integrity.
- Focus on approaches that require independent thinking and analysis
- Consider various exam and question types
- oral, demo, open book, take home, scenario, group quiz (low stakes), letter to . . .
- Include an Academic Integrity question (honor pledge)
- Statement at beginning of exam, first question in exam (yes/no, true/false)
- Creatively remind students about Academic Integrity — statement at beginning of exam, at end of essays or papers, included in the guidelines for assignments.
Provide Elements of Choice in Assessments
- Give student choice to adjust values of grading scheme — yes, this may cause some work for you in terms of adjusting the gradebook.
- Allow choice of assignment format
- (paper, video, portfolio, annotated bibliography, etc.)
- Provide opportunities, where viable, to submit drafts of papers or assignments for feedback
- Structure assessments such that pieces are submitted periodically through semester as low stakes assessments, e.g. outline, references, introduction, full paper, etc.
- Ask students to reflect on what and how they learned and the connections to other topics in their program
Question Design
Here are a few suggestions relating to design elements of questions to keep in mind:
- Use questions that require critical thinking (higher-order or open-ended q’s)
- Use questions that apply course content to real world situations, events or controversies
- Use scenario questions — situation description with questions
- Use analysis of visuals — ask theoretical or detailed questions related to visuals
- Use questions which require an explanation of ‘why’ or ‘how’
- Assess material covered in class more so than readings
- Limit sources/references to specific time period or region
- Make judicious use of test banks:
- be selective and revise questions, and
- build your own bank by copying a question and changing variables.
- Employ unique question types — scenario or branching stories, analysis of visuals or quotes
- Question banks — randomization of question or of options
- when using test banks or sections, look at the total number of questions of each type and level of difficulty; ensure questions are fair and of same level of difficulty
- randomization (multiple choice, essays, etc.); randomization of options (multiple choice questions)
- divide the question bank into sections to ensure more material from across the course is being covered.
- the larger the question bank with lower number of items being selected, the more randomization there will be, and possibly the more complex the exam.
- ensure questions are fair and of same level of difficulty
- make adjustments in stages
Avoid Questions that Have
- ambiguous grammar,
- incomplete statements,
- e.g. which is capital of x…
- challenging for non-native speakers
- extremes:
- all; none; most
- confusing options:
- All or None of the above; Never; A but not C.
Delivery Considerations: Logistics
- Timing, duration, date — who schedules it, invigilation, accommodations
- Judge timing by reading every question word-for word slowly to get a good estimate of how long it will take to complete them and the quiz in total.
- For long answers, make a note or list of key statements you will look for when grading the essays or short answers.
- One sitting — everyone writing at same time, or within window of opportunity with set submission time
- Number of questions displayed at a time
- Can they look back or forward to other pages?
- Detail of feedback and grades — delay till after submission limit, automatic, instructor-managed?
- Delay score availability as a means to prevent students sharing questions and answers
- Grading details given in advance
- Rubrics, formatting and style details, depth of course concepts needed, etc.
Sources
- Egan, A., (2018). Improving Academic Integrity through Assessment Design. Dublin City University, National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL), p. 15.
- Faculty Information about Academic Integrity. University of Saskatchewan.
- Mansbach, J. (2020). Assignment Design: Enhancing Academic Integrity. Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy: Loyola University, Chicago.
- Vogt, J.A. (2017). Designing Assignments to Promote Academic Honesty. Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Originally Published: March 15, 2022
Last Updated: July 16, 2024
