What should you consider with respect to academic integrity when moving to online and blended courses and activities? What tools and services are available and how should they be evaluated, reviewed, and selected? What are options for implementation and partnership with vendors and what are lessons learned from implementation?
Regional accrediting bodies require programs to “ensure the integrity of student work” and the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act by Congress included the provision that “an institution that offers distance education needs to have processes through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.” However, many institutions are unsure how to implement measures to accomplish this requirement when it comes to online and blended education.
With the perfect storm of constantly-adapting and ever-present availability of cheating services, students who are unprepared for assessments, the drive to compete against other students for pay advances and performance appraisals tied to degrees, grades and test scores, and technologies that make it easy to cheat, there is a need for more than just informing students of expectations, creating a culture of integrity through honor codes and pledges, using a government- or school-issued ID, and requiring a login to the LMS.
The move to online and blended education often promotes questions about how to ensure academic integrity, in terms of making sure that the person completing the work is actually the student enrolled in the course, and in terms of making sure that the student completing the work is doing so in a fair and honest way. In many resources, the focus on academic integrity is on educating students, instructional designers, and instructors, building assessments that do not “require” proctoring, or on changing the style of the course to be more collaborative and project-based. While these are all good areas to explore, in many cases, there is a need for tools, techniques, and services that require students to verify who they are and that they are completing the work as expected.
Adopting academic integrity tools and services cannot be effectively be accomplished without effort and involving a range of people and considerations. This session will include a facilitated discussion of the following questions:
- What should you consider with respect to academic integrity when you move to online and blended courses and activities?
- What tools and services are available?
- How should tools and services be evaluated, reviewed, selected?
- What are the options for implementation and partnership with vendors?
- What are lessons learned from implementing academic integrity measures, technologies, services and processes?
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