Academic integrity: Workshops Feb 2 and Feb 6

Authenticating student work is becoming ever more challenging with the advent of contract cheating and easy access to cheating sites. Issues with academic integrity are not new but connectivity via the internet has changed the dimensions of the problem. Recent public reports have reinforced this as a priority in Australian Universities.

Regulation of assessment practice is always part of the answer but so is clever assessment design that requires local knowledge, in-person presentation or builds up a picture of the learner so anomalies are easily detected. We need to work with students to establish a culture of integrity and also need to make sure at-risk students believe they have viable alternatives such as academic support rather than turning to a cheating site as the assessment deadline gets close.

Christine Slade and Susan Rowland from the University of Queensland are leading two workshops in February to: ‘bring together the creative minds of academics, learning designers and others’ experienced in assessment design across the university sector to develop a collection of high stakes assessment case studies that demonstrate ways to strengthen the verification of student identity in undertaking these tasks.’

Clever assessment needs discipline expertise and local knowledge to make sure it can work for each discipline and its specific intended learning outcomes, and in the context of the institution. Online learning has its own special set of challenges!

Christine and Susan will publish their assessment case studies on the Asia Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity (APFEI) website in the near future. We’ll keep you informed about the project if you can’t attend the upcoming workshops.

Student Identity Verified Assessment Workshops

Dr Christine Slade & A/Prof Susan Rowland, The University of Queensland

Contract cheating website services are a serious threat to academic integrity in universities because they challenge the authenticity of student authorship in assessment.  Current plagiarism detection strategies do not catch contract cheating students because their purchased assessment responses are individualised and users’ details are hidden behind sophisticated fire walls.  In response we need to ensure that students genuinely complete work for which they get university credit.

In these workshops we aim to bring together the creative minds of academics, learning designers and others’ experienced in assessment design across the university sector to develop a collection of high stakes assessment case studies that demonstrate ways to strengthen the verification of student identity in undertaking these tasks. The workshops are funded by the Asia Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity (APFEI) and a revised collection of assessment case studies will be placed on the APFEI’s website. Registered participants will be contacted by the facilitators about possible involvement in an accompanying research project.

Places are limited. Please register with links provided below.