Academic integrity is crucial to all educational facilities. It is especially hard to monitor online with how technology keeps advancing. Though it is challenging, it is important to help students understand academic integrity. As Griffith states in her article, online educators can use videos, cartoons, “campaign” posters and other engaging ways to teach students about why academic integrity is so important (2013). Another way to involve students in understanding academic integrity is through engaging contests. On the ICAI’s website it talks about students creating ways to talk about academic integrity, poems, videos, songs, etc.
I like the idea of having students discuss in a discussion post what academic integrity means and what the school’s academic integrity policy is. If as. a teacher, you suspect that a student was dishonest, it is important to check their work. One way to check writing is to check if the students papers match the style of writing in their discussion boards (Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education, 2010).
In order to achieve academic integrity, “…we will need to help students–even more in online courses than on-campus–to understand that the integrity of their academic credits, certificates and degrees might very well depend on automated measures to confirm their participation and ensure the validity of their assessment” (Berkey, & Halfond, 2015). From McNabb’s three-pronged approach, some approaches to fostering a community of inquiry are including critical thinking discussions, assignments that require collaboration, activities that cannot be duplicated, develop an honor code, and explain what is unacceptable (Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education, 2010).
For online tests, scramble the answers and questions so that students cannot simply copy and paste. The use of courseware will also watch how long students are on the quiz or test. As educators,“…we do students a substantial disservice when we don’t treat academic dishonesty seriously… Consequences should not be so severe that they end a student’s academic career, except for extremely egregious violations. However, the consequences should be serious, should cause students some psychological pain, and should require effort on the part of the student to overcome. Anything less is a disservice to our students as we prepare them to engage in their professional worlds” (Kiviniemi, 2015, p.38). We must create relationships with students to ensure academic integrity, but as humans, we fall short, so it is imperative that we are prepared with what happens if a student is dishonest. For my students, I think it would be important that they drop a letter grade, and fail that assignment. It seems too drastic to me to fail them out of the course, unless as stated above, it is egregious.
References:
Berkey, D., Halfond, J., Boston University, & Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (2015). Cheating, Student Authentication and Proctoring in Online Programs. Retrieved from https://nebhe.org/journal/cheating-student-authentication-and-proctoring-in-online-programs/
Griffith, J. J. (2013). Pedagogical Over Punitive: The Academic Integrity Websites of Ontario Universities. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 43(1), 1–22. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.messiah.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=88926074&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Kiviniemi, M. T. (2015). The Case for Consequences for Academic Dishonesty. College Teaching, 63(2), 37–39. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.messiah.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1060532&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education. (2010, May). Retrieved from https://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/promoting-academic-integrity-in-online-education/
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