On 29 February 2024 I attended an academic conduct review briefing for module teams. The aim of this blog is to share some highlights that may be useful for colleagues (and to also try to remember what was covered, since there’s always a lot going on).
During the introduction, it was highlighted that academic referrals have increased over the last 5 years. Two thirds of these typically relate to study skills and poor academic practice. In other words, this relates to what could be called inadvertent misconduct.
There are some specific challenges. Investigations take time, there is an obvious need for consistency with decision making, a need for transparency, and continually emerging threats, such as essay mills and the arrival of generative AI. To respond to this changing landscape, there is a new VLE page for staff, a new academic conduct tariff, new guidance on StudentHome, a new referral form, and new processes and study skills arrangements.
Academic integrity principles for assessment design
Assessment design is important. Good assessment design should ‘reduce the motivation and opportunities for plagarism’ and focus should be on how learning takes place, as well as what is learnt.
An important point that I noted was that module teams should look at patterns of academic conduct referrals. One way to respond to repeated issues is, of course, to consider the assessment design. To help with this, there some useful principles of assessment which I share below.
A key theme of these principles is authenticity. This is connected with need for to assessments that focus on problem solving, perhaps solving problem that might have an open ended answer.
Here are the ten principles that were shared during the session.
Principle 1: Reward academic integrity
Make sure students reflect on their skills and capabilities that demonstrate academic integrity.
Principle 2: Assess higher skills
Assess metacognitive skills where students actively create an answer, with an emphasis on construction and their own thinking. This point is, of course, linked to the principle of refletion.
Principle 3: Open-ended solutions
This principle is related to authenticity. It’s possible to see authenticity within the undergraduate computing project module.
Principle 4: Diversify assessment formats
This is linked to how students might relate assessment to their own interests and preferences. Providing a variety of different assessment formats also speaks to the importance of accessibility and diversity.
Principle 5: Authentic assessment
Making an assessment real by sharing an exciting concept can enhance motivation. Make an assessment authentic by drawing on their own experience.
Principle 6: New assignment questions
To limit the risk of academic conduct, prepare new assignment questions every year. Design the assignments in such a way that students cannot re-use a previous answer. In other words, make it difficult for students to directly benefit if the questions were to be shared.
Principle 7: Process besides product
Ask students to submit interim versions of assignments or ask them to provide a demonstration. In the computing project module, students are asked to submit a draft EMA as an assessment.
Principle 8: Making quality criteria transparent
Make rubrics transparent; share with students how assessments are made so everyone knows what the module team (and the university) is looking for.
Principle 9: Generating and acting on feedback
Encourage students to generate their own feedback, which helps to develop critical thinking. This relates to a principle of peer assessment. This is used, to a limited extent in a software engineering module, where students comment on interim designs.
Principle 10: Authentication methods
Are students who they say they are? There used to be a time when students had carry out written exams by attending exam centres at a specific date and time. As a part of this, students needed to show a form of ID, such as a passport or a driving licence. An alternative approach would be for a student to have a conversation with a tutor about their assignment.
TurnitIn
A recent development has been the increased availability of TurnItIn to students. Module teams and staff tutors always used to receive TurnItIn reports. These reports indicated whether a submission contained words found in other online resources. A typical TurnItIn report might highlight legitimate quotes that a student used to evidence an argument, as well as uncited text.
On many modules students can now submit an earlier version of an assignment into TurnItIn. In turn, they can review a ‘similarity report’ to gain confidence that their assignment is adhering to sound principles of good academic practice. More information about TurnItIn can be typically found within a module’s assessment handbook.
Resources
A whole host of useful resources are available to students. The blog post Study Skills Resources: what is available? offers a handy summary of some of the most useful.
Reflections
I’m not sure where these assessment principles come from. I really like them. I can bring these ten points into module team meetings. Their focus on authenticity strikes me as being really important. It is important in terms of problem solving, skill development and the application of knowledge.
Putting the assessment design principles to one side for a moment, tutors are really important. If appropriate, students can refer students for additional support sessions, and can also refer students to study advisors who work within the student support team.
Students can then be referred to additional support needs, and referral to a study advisor. In my experience tutors may sometimes get a sense when a student may have used Generative AI.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are duly given to the academic conduct review team who facilitated this session. The principles shared in this blog post are their own, and I take no credit for them. I hope I’ve summarised them effectively.