Academic Integrity in an
Electronic World:
Student Cheating and
Plagiarism
November 9, 2010
Brown Bag
The University of Arizona
http://oia.arizona.edu
How prevalent is academic
dishonesty?
It appears to be a significant problem.
• Donald McCabe – surveys of student and
faculty 1990 – present
• Recent work by others on online/blended
courses vs. face-to-face
Examinations:
21% students admit to copying, use of
crib notes or helping someone to cheat
on an exam
33% admit to learning what is on an exam
from someone who has already taken it
(2005 McCabe)
Written Assignments:
42% of undergrads and 26% of grads worked
with others when asked for individual work
36% undergrads report copying from a web
source without citation
59% of faculty report seeing cases of word-forword copying without citation; 7% of
undergrads and 4% of grads report doing this
(2005 McCabe)
Other assignments:
19% of undergrads report falsifying lab
data at least once
39% faculty observed students copying
someone else’s work for a required
computer programming assignment
(2005 McCabe)
Do online courses have less integrity?
Lack of physical contact increases doubt
about identity of student, possible use of a
stand-in.
Students perceive cheating in online courses
to be as frequent as or greater than in faceto-face. (Harmon et al 2010)
Heavy reliance on un-proctored multiplechoice exams may increase possibility of
cheating.
What do we see at The
University of Arizona?
What types of violations have you observed in the
last 3 years?
Do you observe an increase in certain types of
violations?
Do you use unproctored mutiple choice OR written
short answer/essay exams? Why or why not?
Promote integrity
Define cheating.
“Over 40% of undergraduates and 30% of
graduate students (and almost 20% of faculty)
are … not convinced that ‘cut and paste’
plagiarism is moderate or serious cheating.”
“Unpermitted collaboration is a particularly
difficult issue.” (McCabe 2005)
Do not ignore suspected violations.
What tactics or strategies have you
found (in) effective for promoting
academic integrity?
Does a positive peer culture (McCabe and
Pavela) exist at the U of A with regard to
academic integrity?
Prevent violations
Use question shuffling tactics.
• Multiple versions of exams & randomization of
questions and answers (D2L can create a unique
exam for each student.)
• Selective reuse of previous exam questions
Use creative and varied forms of assessment.
Carefully consider the percentage-of-final
grade of any single assignment—especially
an unproctored exam.
Prevent violations
Create MC-type (and written) exams that
test higher order thinking skills.
Proctor examinations.
• Outreach College can help with online courses.
Will this be a temporal, physical or financial
barrier for students?
n.b. Seating arrangements may not be
effective.
Detect violations
Use TurnItIn plagiarism detection software.
• Integrated into D2L dropbox
• Similarity report for each written assignment
Analyze D2L quiz log of events.
• Are there long “gaps” between login, submission or
saves?
• Do you see sequential login of pairs of students from
the same computer?
Case study: NATS101
The Challenge: mid-term and final examinations
• 182 students, 2 graduate teaching assistants, 4 lecturers
The Plan:
• 3 versions of Part 1 of the exam: online objective test,
randomized questions and answers
• 3 versions of Part 2 of exam: essay questions; answers to
be uploaded to D2L dropbox and reviewed by TurnItIn
Limited access to exam
• Students had to login inside of a 15 minute “start period.”
• They had 30 minutes to complete Part 1. Once a student
completed Part 1, s/he could access Part 2 for 30 minutes.
Deadline was not automatically enforced for Part 2.
What happened?
What changes will be made?
Gretchen Gibbs
ggibbs@email.arizona.edu
520-626-2621
Office of Instruction and
Assessment
at
The University of Arizona
Manual Pacheco Integrated
Learning Center
520-626-2621
Fax 520-626-8220
http://oia.arizona.edu