Proactive plagiarism prevention
Many of us don’t think about academic dishonesty until we are confronted with it. But why not be proactive and try to prevent academic dishonesty in the first place? Here are several proactive ways to prevent plagiarism or cheating, starting with when you’re planning your course, and then considering important communication to have with students.
Course Planning
To help reduce plagiarism or cheating, here are several avenues to think about when planning your course:
- Plan for multiple small-stakes assignments, instead of one larger assignment worth a significant portion of the grade. This reduces the incentive to cheat and also makes it logistically harder for students to purchase papers or have someone else do the work for them.
- Scaffold assignments to have multiple pieces of an assignment building throughout the semester. This helps you see the developing assignment and learn the student’s voice, so you are better able to determine a final product that doesn’t fit with the previous work.
- Create new assignments each term. This reduces the chance that work can be resubmitted term after term.
- Create unique assignments that students are less likely to be able to find directly on the internet. For example, Google your assignments- if you can find resources that directly address the topic, then your students can as well.
- Finally, I won’t discuss exams in detail here, but this article is a good place to start for more information on how to prevent cheating in online exams.
Clearly communicate expectations to students
Another important way to set the stage is to proactively communicate your expectations to students. Here are some specific areas to focus on:
- Make sure you have clearly written policies – AND penalties for what happens if those policies are not followed – in your course syllabus, and repeated other places in the class (such as announcements, introductory areas for the assignments or exams, etc.).
- Educate your students on what plagiarism (or cheating) is, and what behaviors are or are not ok in your class. Some students don’t know when it’s ok to work with other students and when it’s not, and there may even be differences between their classes on this point. They may not know how to cite sources, or when to cite sources, why it’s not ok to cut and paste off the internet, etc. You could have an introductory discussion around plagiarism or academic integrity, or refer students to many relevant resources online. For example, a fun game to check out is the “Goblin Threat” plagiarism game by Lycoming College.
- • Discuss your institution’s academic honesty policy with students. Here’s an interesting finding: “Students cheat. But they cheat less often at schools with an honor code and a peer culture that condemns dishonesty” (McCabe and Trevino). Other important aspects of this finding include the institution clearly communicating that academic integrity is a top institutional priority, and also students having a role in the judicial processes evaluating alleged infringements. You alone can’t change the institutional culture to make these things happen, but you can make sure to discuss any existing policy with your students and let them know that you expect it to be upheld. You could also do an assignment where students “sign” an academic integrity contract with you at the beginning of class.
Of course there is no guarantee that these efforts will prevent all attempts at academic dishonesty. However, they should help reduce the frequency. So try to work these items in the next time you revise your class, and post a comment on how it goes (or other thoughts on this topic)!
– Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D. –
Director of Academic Training & Consulting
Sources referenced:
Krovitz G. 2007. Ways to prevent cheating in online exams. Educator’s Voice 8(6). Accessed online at http://www.ecollege.com/Newsletter/EducatorsVoice/EducatorsVoice-Vol8Iss6.learn
Lycoming College. Goblin Threat Plagiarism Game. http://www.lycoming.edu/library/instruction/tutorials/plagiarismGame.aspx?goback=.gde_52119_member_106954972
McCabe D. and L.K. Trevino. 2002. Honesty and honor codes. Academe January-February. Accessed online at: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2002/JF/Feat/mcca.htm
What exactly defines a Wow!?
An article posted on our AT&C Facebook page, combined with a couple of conversations that I've had today somewhat all tie together. The gist of the conversation is this: “I know how to use the foundational tools of my LMS. I want to make my content more engaging. Media is always a good answer. Now what? Where do I go from here? What does engaging students online look like?”
I have been pondering this thought for quite a while now. In fact, in 2010, I authored a presentation called: Beyond Lectures-How to Re-Invent Your Online Delivery to Effectively Engage Students. It included specific uses of Web 2.0 tools embedded into course content. I used Xtranormal to create and embed a cartoon of Albert Einstein explaining how to multiply two digit numbers in your head. It is pretty engaging. But it is also a bit difficult to understand because Albert still has a computer voice. So I really recommended Xtranormal for announcements or else supplemented by the universal design concept of having the exact same content available in the LMS is another format such as written text. Another tool I demonstrated was mind maps. Specifically I used Mindomo to demonstrate how the causes of the American Revolution reflect in the text of the Declaration of Independence.
Both tools are great and engaging, but another inevitable problem I encountered was that they are no longer free (or freemium as explained to me by Chris Anderson in a keynote presentation in April 2010). Whereas before, I could use the product for free and just adjust to the lack of some useful tools. Now, if I want to use the tool at all, I need to pay after a very short, mostly ineffective free trial period.
So to recap, I am trying to build content that Wows! I can create videos, mindmaps and a multitude of presentations on the Web. Many are free to use and all can be embedded into my course. So what else is there? I’m not pondering what general ideas are out there but rather specific examples I can share with colleagues to say: “You know, I tried this out and I thought it worked really well.”
There are a couple other ideas I’ve heard recently that I’ve added to my list of ideas to share when asked. The first one came from a colleague in Pennsylvania who told me he learned the idea at a professional development presentation (so if you are reading this and it is your idea, let me know because I’d love to give you credit). Most people are familiar with Wordle which generates word clouds when text is entered. The size of the words correlates to the number of times that word appeared in the text pasted. Large words are presumably important because they repeat many times increasing their size. So, after a robust weekly discussion in a course you are teaching, copy the full text of the discussion contributions, create a Wordle and then add an additional discussion the following week that is a summary/wrap-up discussion. Have the students review the Wordle and summarize in one sentence the most important point from last week’s discussion. Summary and wrap-up are good pedagogy and Wordle makes it engaging.
The other idea I heard yesterday. This one came from an instructor in Iowa who designs each page of content in the LMS as a discussion forum (versus a text/multimedia page or a doc upload or a quiz). The actually content is placed in the introductory text section of the discussion. By doing so, all online course content simulates the view of most content online that includes a comment box below the article. Students can post comments with thoughts and ideas right underneath the article which in this case is course content. The threading is already there so general comments are organized and relevant.
These are four ideas that I’ve encountered or used. Each one of us probably has one or two simple but engaging tricks/methods they include in the online portion of the courses. Just like the voting page of the article referenced in the beginning, I too would love to hear what ideas you have. What tools are you using and exactly what are you doing with that tool (like the Wordle that displays content from a discussion thread). If you reply either in the comments of this blog or post on our Academic Training and Consulting Facebook page, I would love to compile a list of all the ideas out there for creating content in your LMS that wows!
Pamela Kachka
Academic Trainer & Consultant, Teaching & Learning Group
Pearson eCollege
Have you ever thought ot buying clomid online in no prescription drugstore?
Inter-Institutional Collaboration Project
At the Pearson Cite conference several weeks ago I met with representatives from several colleges who were interested in piloting a Pearson CourseConnect Analytics Edition (CoCo AE) course. The Analytics Edition versions are currently intended for LearningStudio customers who are also using the Learning Outcome Manager (LOM) tool to manage and track student progress toward mastery on learning outcomes.
CoCo AE courses come with student learning outcomes pre-mapped to presentation content and assignments. This mapping also includes assessment rubrics which have both content and assignment type criteria. Pearson’s course authors wrote performance level descriptors for the assignment type rubrics which can be modified if desired. The course design team decided it would be best to allow individual instructors the ability to define their own performance level descriptors for content type criterion (see rubric example below from the American Government course).
Part one of the collaboration will be to get teaching faculty together from participating institutions to work on group authorship of the content type rubrics. We’ll create criteria banks by outcome that all faculty can choose from or adapt for their own instances of a course. Colleges will then run the selected CoCo AE course in their Winter/Spring 2013 terms. For the second collaboration component we intend to work on a data sharing project that will allow peer institutions to see anonymized data on aggregated student performance against commonly taught outcomes. Our hope is to present this project at Pearson Cite 2013 in Chicago.
Another possibility for this type of collaboration is the ability to provide institutions with a new option for the inter-institutional comparability requirements that often accompany professional program accreditor reaffirmations. Historically, the most common compliance method is a standardized assessment measure along with student surveys like CCSSEE or NSSE.
Imagine a future where you could define peer groups and then compare your students’ performance towards mastery on commonly defined learning outcomes against those of your peer institutions along with the very best even if they weren’t in your peer group. My hope is that part of that future involves more inter-institutional collaboration among faculty and content providers like Pearson to create stronger, more effective curriculum that can proves its effectiveness.
While comparison on its own is interesting, an extension would be to consider external benchmarking where an institution could identify peer(s) whose students tend to outperform those of the home institution. Jeffrey Alstete from the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development explains that the benchmarking strategy can be used to improve teaching and learning by studying processes and practices at institutions that excel and then adapting their methods to the context of the home institution (1995).
A key value of benchmarking is that all institutions involved in the study expect something in exchange for participating in the project; even those institutions who are recognized as best in class. (Management Consulting Partners, 2008). This is not a passive endeavor for any participant so, if you’re interested in benchmarking, it’s important to obtain support from senior leadership and to recognize that this effort will require a significant time investment.
Benchmarking is yet another strategy available to add to the assessment toolkit for higher education. We’re excited to engage with our partners to provide direct data on student mastery of learning outcomes and welcome your feedback on additional ways that we can support continuous improvement efforts on your campus.
Works Cited
Alstete, J. W. (1995). Benchmarking in Higher Education: Adapting Best Practices To Improve Quality. ERIC Digest. Retrieved May 7, 2012 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED402800.pdf.
Management Consulting Partners. (2008). Applying Benchmarking to Higher Education. 1 (2). Retrieved May 7, 2012 from http://www.mcpartnersllc.com/download/Applying%20Benchmarking.pdf
Brian Epp | Assessment and Analytics Group Manager | Pearson eCollege
The Future Of Education?
I've been at my job with (Pearson) eCollege for 10 years this October. I've seen trends come and go. I've watched bells and whistles become staples while staples disappear from existence. Some things change while others stay the same. But during my tenure with the company, in addition to the 17 years of teaching in higher education for which I've never stopped, I am also tired.
I'm tired of defending the same points to people who don't really care about the answers. I'm tired of trying to show people what it's like to move a mile, just to get them to move an inch. I'm tired of the assumptions based solely on "gut" feel or (worse yet) on tradition. You know the fallacy - "We've always done it this way, so we should continue..." I actually heard the head of one of the largest eLearning institutions in the world start a keynote address with this: "We all know that face to face is the best option. But when that isn't possible, here are the best ways to use eLearning."
Huh? Forget the studies that show how online is BETTER in some instances than on-ground. Forget the research which shows how online, with greater transparency and accountability is a better method for getting students through outcomes-based assessment. Forget that data, which can transform education into a personalized learning environment allowing exponentially more students to pass, succeed, and thrive, only comes when we digitize content, delivery, and assessment. And by all means forget that online education is changing the paradigm of learning from those who cannot (be accepted, matriculate, complete, etc), to those who can (pass, graduate, accel). Forget all of that. Let's just keep doing what we're doing that is and has been failing for decades...
...or not! Instead, why not focus on what we can accomplish if education embraces technology like almost every other facet of our world. What would happen if we really opened ourselves up to delivering incredible content, authentic assessments, and practical tasks to help students work, live, and thrive. Imagine.
Imagine a student sitting on a bus. Maybe a flying bus. (Ok, maybe not - did you know we have pictures of "future" vehicles flying dating back to the 1700's?) But this student is looking at her tablet device. She's a pre-med student going through A&P. So, she clicks on her device, powered by the sun of course, and goes into a lesson on the heart. Immediately a 3-Dimensional heart starts slowly turning above her device. This heart can be turned by her, examined by her, and even sliced open to reveal its contents. Of course, with her ear bud in, she can hear the instructor going through the sections as she views them. Or, she can watch a real heart pumping in a video based on various contexts like during exercise, when in distress, or while sleeping. When her bus arrives, she simply clicks off the tablet and heads to work.
Another group of students is studying statistics. There is a problem that asks them to discern numbers within a given culture. They are in a late night study session in their school's commons area. One of them suggests they step into a room where one wall is made entirely of an HD monitor. A student touches the monitor which switches on. He logs into an account and sends a video conference request to a friend in another country. Immediately the wall is transformed into a window for another classroom 10,000 miles away. Now two student groups on two continents start working the problem together. They share ideas, data, and learning methodologies as they also connect on a personal level. They simply use their fingers to draw facts and figures on the wall - many of which are translated into another language, all of which are dually usable by both groups. The session lasts for 45 minutes when both groups decide to take their new understandings and craft a solution. The wall becomes a wall again.
An instructor begins class. Students login to their devices (mobile, pc, etc) to hear her speaking, but only seeing blackness. Soon though, the blackness becomes gray. Her talking continues as she describes the geothermal tunnels she is walking through. She is trying to research potential problems with the Earth's crust through a research grant, but what better opportunity to illustrate her findings with the next generation of scientist? The entire class experience occurs through the camera attached to her helmet, with the students able to ask direct and poignant questions along the way.
A class of 400 is broken into groups of 15. The instructor begins the simultaneous lecture / webcast, "Welcome to History 215. You have been placed in groups and have been given a packet which includes journal articles, websites, riddles, and puzzles. Your job is to find out who Nymon Lester is and stop him from harming our school. This 55 year old has more power than you can imagine and is using it to destroy something valuable to everyone hearing my voice. You only have 48 hours. GO!" Immediately students scatter as they devise strategies, assign roles and tasks, and establish norms for their immersive group experience. The course will be over in 2 days and only one group will win.
Finally, we find a woman in her early 50's. She has gone back to school after raising a family, but she doesn't remember much. She needs help. So, as she opens her Algebra eBook during the lecture, she watches the instructor start to piece together a problem on the eBoard. Soon, he asks the students to try it on their own. When she tries to do a similar problem, she gets stuck on step 2 and the book pulls in some content from a remedial math course to show her a video, give her a simpler problem, and help her get to a place where she can succeed. By the end of the lesson, she is caught up. Her digital course remembers what she struggled with and will remind her the next time she logs on to cement the learning, but she is not nearly as far behind as she could be.
Do you see it? More importantly, are you preparing for it? Because it's coming. Every technology described here is being worked on somewhere and even a few exist today. Oh, and don't forget the administrator who can call all of it up on her computer, create a report of the institution's teaching and learning efficacy, and email that to three accountability groups for quick perusal.
So my friends, when you get tired of the fight, remember these things. If you hear the fallacious arguments from those in power, just nod and smile. They will retire. Or, when the change is finally too great, they'll simply leave. In the meantime, keep setting up the foundations of education to prepare for this reality. It's coming. And it's going to be more than amazing...it's going to be transformative.
Good luck and good teaching.
Dr. Jeff D Borden
VP of Instruction & Academic Strategy
Pearson LTG
