Free Paper Example: Ways Universities can Ensure Academic Honesty

Academic dishonesty has become prevalent among universities. This refers to the various actions that students engage in that go against the expected norms of the academic or learning institution. The learning institutions are left with the task of establishing ways to mitigate the vice in both online and residential courses. The paper addresses the various ways that universities ensure academic honesty is maintained among students.

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The prevention strategies begin with the academic institutions establishing and communicating a policy that promotes academic integrity (Morris, 2018). This applies to both online and face-to-face classes or examinations. It calls for the colleges in the institution to establish a required statement for both online and resident students. A vital aspect of the policy is clear communication of the penalties linked to each infraction. Some of the policies can be established by a college campus, while others would require an instructor to regulate the penalties tailored to their specific courses (Morris, 2018).

Some of the strategies used to minimize cheating in both online and residential courses include the following:

Educating the students on the constitution of academic integrity. This includes the use of online platforms that enhance academic integrity or ensure student enlightenment as part of the orientation activities.

Making sure that the course syllabus spells out the required expectations and ensuring that the students remain accountable to them.

Quizzing the students on issues of academic integrity among other policies in the courses during the course orientation processes. This is done through a course readiness quiz. This quiz can be conducted whether the course is online or resident (Bachore, 2016).

Adding a confirmation statement on all the academic submissions, i.e., “By submitting this (assignment, exam, paper), I clearly state that all the work is entirely my own and fails to violate the university’s policy on academic integrity.” The students can further be obligated to sign this statement before submitting each assignment (Bachore, 2016).

Considering authentic assessments through projects or activities where the students will be obligated to demonstrate the application of what they learned while utilizing the rubrics where applicable. These rubrics will not only save time during grading but also make clear the assignment expectations for students. The online courses cover a variety of effective techniques that help to access student learning via authentic assessment and rubrics. This is applicable for both online and residence teaching.

The assessment criterion should be constantly changed by using three or four versions that keep rotating throughout the year. This will be efficient in preventing issues such as the students' use of sites that share the course material such as CourseHero among others to post information (Thomas & De Bruin, 2012).

Test blueprinting methods can also be utilized to produce fair pools of exam questions. This process makes it easier to create multiple questions that aim at testing the same context.

The student’s voice can also be compared to the writing assignment, the e-mail messages, and the discussion postings. Any dramatic variations in the voices would call for a closer examination of the written assignment.

Programs such as Turnitin.com can also be used to control plagiarism in the student’s work. Universities can provide free access to such services for all the faculties. The course syllabuses should also allow the application of this service.

Other than the above general strategies, some specific strategies also exist that can be tailored for residents or online studying. Some of the specific strategies for resident schooling include the following:

• Requiring the student phones to be face down when placed on top of their desks to make it clear when a student picks up their phone to look at it in the course of an assessment.
• Walking around to increase the proximity of the assessor to the student. Closer proximity to the students would help mitigate cheating during exams.

The use of test proctors and videotape exams can also be significant (Thomas & De Bruin, 2012). The students should not be aware of the videotaping in advance to increase its efficiency. However, it should be encoded in the course syllabus.

In the case of paper exams, two or three versions of a test can be created but differentiated in a way that would make it cumbersome for the students to view them as different exams. This way, a cheating student would easily be caught when they copy incorrect answers from a nearby classmate.

The specific strategies for online schooling would incorporate the following:

• Limiting the time required to complete an online assessment to a reasonable time will prevent looking up for answers.
• Use of proctors for high-stake assessments such as exams.
• Randomizing the questions and answers to make it cumbersome for students to share the answers (Baran & Jonason, 2020).

It is vital to maintain academic integrity and honesty. This should be a principal value within the university community, and the teaching staff should be uniquely positioned to model, teach, and ensure integrity is maintained in the student’s academic work. Only persons with honest, ethical, and accurate academic work should take full credit for their work.

References

Bachore, M. (2016). Nature, causes, and practices of academic dishonesty/cheating in higher education: The case of Hawassa University. Journal of Education and Practice. 7(19). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1109249.pdf

Baran, L. & Jonason, P. (2020, August 31). Academic dishonesty among university students: The roles of the psychopathy, motivation, and self-efficacy. PloSONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238141

Morris, E. (2018, December 27). Academic integrity matters; five considerations for addressing contract cheating. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 14(15). https://edintegrity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s40979-018-0038-5

Thomas, A. & De Bruin, G. (2012, January). Student academic dishonesty: What do academics think and do and what are the barriers to action? Researchgate.net. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256814073_Student_academic_dishonesty_What_do_academics_think_and_do_and_what_are_the_barriers_to_action