Students Cheat Less in Online Courses

In "Students Cheat More in Online Courses?", George Watson and James Sottile (Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 2010) report that students admit to cheating more in face to face courses than on-line ones. They suggest that this is because the students work together in the classroom and so are included to share answers. To stop the sharing of answers in on-line tests, the authors suggest having the test supervised, or better still change to other forms of assessment, such as assignments. One approach which they surprisingly do not suggest is group work. Students in the face-to-face class are working together should be seen a a positive outcome and could be encouraged by group work. I use online discussion forums as part of assessment, along with assignments.

Low energy, high impact approaches to teaching international students

Greetings from the Australian National Unviersity, where Jude Carroll, of Oxford Brookes University UK, is speaking on "Low energy, high impact approaches to teaching international students". She is the author of A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education (OCSLD, 2011).

Jude identified the characteristics of "international" students, being a combination of learning in a second language, in a different country and culture. Obviously many of these caracterisits apply to "local" students and so improving courses for international students should help all students.

It occurs to me that the international students can help educate the teachers about how to be more international.

Jude suggests a self-audit, to assess what are the issues for the teacher. What is taking up most work time might be the most useful activity. Some tasks stress the teacher, perhaps unnecessarily. Some tasks may not be educationally useful. Also there may be interventions (strategies) which work well. For me giving routine lectures was time consuming and stressful, so I stopped giving lectures.

One useful suggestion Jude made was not to copy edit the whole of a student assignment. She asserted that students do not learn English grammar by being shown numerous corrections in their assignment. Instead she suggested identifying a few representative problems, use standard descriptions of what the problem is and identify where students can get help. I get good results referring students who have difficultly with assignment writing to the ANU Academic Skills and Learning Centre.

Further information on Jude Carroll's work is in the "International Student Lifecycle Resources bank".

Jude Carroll, will present two seminars on 'Formative uses of TurnItIn' and 'Teaching International Students 'at University of Queensland in Brisbane, 16 November 2011.

Plagiarism by International Students at University

Greetings from the Australian National Unviersity, where

Jude Carroll, of Oxford Brookes University UK, is speaking on "Exploring ten years’ experience of deterring plagiarism". She is the author of A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education (OCSLD, 2011). Jude began by emphasizing that she was not claiming international students plagiarized more, but that they needed to have the academic process explained to them. She uses the word "deterrence" as the objective is to shape the student's decision making.:

Some points from the talk:

1. Not all Plagiarism is cheating: Jude emphasized that plagiarism is about work, not words. The majority of students do not understand what plagiarism is.
2. Australia leads the world on systematic approach to plagiarism: Australian institutions have a good systematic approach to dealing with plagiarism, not just using some detection software.
3. Plagiarism policies are important: Having a credible policy help prevent plagiarism.

Jude the discussed the differences of "international" students. One point that students from some educational backgrounds have not had to do written assignments. The solution was to explain what was needed with assignments and make the explanations are clear. Otherwise students do not there are rules, do not understand them and do not realize they apply to them.

Jude suggested that formal citations were not needed in all student work and students should not be penalized for early mistakes. For my ICT Sustainability students, I have then formally reference a few forum positing to make sure they know how to do it, but then tell them they can use less formal web links (apart for the formal assignments). Most work out what to do with a little help, some need to be referred for individual assistance.

Jude suggested "make not find" constructivist assignments to encourage students to not just find sources. Having a set of steps for the stud nets to carry out, so they are discouraged from leaving it until the deadline helps.

In my view educators need to adopt the customer friendly approach which those who sell assignments do, on "best assignment" websites. We could offer easy to use step by step assistance to the student to do their assignments. This assistance would not involve actually doing the work for the student, as the assignment factories do, but would give the students the help the need.

Jude Carroll, will present two seminars on 'Formative uses of TurnItIn' and 'Teaching International Students 'at University of Queensland in Brisbane, 16 November 2011.

See also:

• "COURSEWORK WHICH DISCOURAGES COPYING, COLLUSION OR CUT-AND-PASTE" , Jude Carroll, 2011
  

• Addressing Plagiarism, The Higher Education Academy, 2011

Deterring Plagiarism by International Students at University

Jude Carroll, Oxford Brookes University UK will speak on "Exploring ten years’ experience of deterring plagiarism" at the Australian National Unviersity, 9:30 AM - 11:15 AM, 9 November 2011. She is the author of A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education (OCSLD, 2011).

Exploring ten years’ experience of deterring plagiarism

Australian universities have been actively managing issues linked to student plagiarism for more than a decade. This interactive presentation identifies lessons learned, highlights new issues for teachers and for institutions, and focuses in particular on the needs of international students. Whilst all students often have difficulty in understanding and complying with expectations about plagiarism, international students can face additional pressures and confusions. The session will explore these, propose solutions, and suggest tried-and-tested ways to deter all students from copying, finding or faking their work. It will also deal with effective policies and procedures for dealing with cases when they do not.

Jude Carroll has worked for several decades as an educational developer at Oxford Brookes University in the UK, where she took on a wide range of responsibilities but specialised in managing student plagiarism and in effective teaching of international students. In 2009 – 2011, she worked on the UK-government funded Teaching International Students (TIS) project, developing resources and events for teachers. She is the author of The Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education (2007, 2nd ed) and with Dr Janette Ryan, she co-edited the widely used text Teaching International Students: improving learning for all (2005: Routledge). In 2009, Jude was awarded a UK National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of her work in both fields.

Why students are failing

Greetings from the University of Canberra, where Dr Jon Scott, from University of Leicester, is talking on "Why are students failing? What works to improve retention and success?". He was involved in UK research on the student experience. This showed that most of the problems for new students were not to do with their studies, but social issues of adjustments in leaving the family home and becoming young adult on campus.

Some of the issues also relate to the adult postgraduate students I deal with. As an example Jon's research shows the students do not have recent experience in writing so much. My students comment on the amount of reading they have to do and the need for the detailed referencing. Adult students have less difficulty with planning their work, but have the pressures of work and family.

One interesting aspect is where students get advice from during their university time and how helpful they find it. Jon's research show that the student's personal tutor is the primary source of advice, but students are not that happy with the quality of advice. Students instead are comfortable with advice from family and friends. Being a recent postgraduate student enrolled for face to face and on-line courses is that I have found the quality of advice much higher with an on-line course. I can ask a question and get an answer later and the person preparing the answer has my details, including the history of previous questions in front of them. With a face to face query, I have to find the staff member so I can ask a question, then remind them of who I am and what I am doing.

While Jon presented an interesting and well researched analysis of what the issues are for new students, the proposed way to improve this were disappointing. As an example, the research shows that the personal tutors are relatively ineffective. The proposed solution was better training for the tutors. Instead I suggest replacing the tutors with an on-line help services, with a group of tutors to help. Another example was that Jon identified the difference of school education which allows students to resubmit until they reach the required standard, with university examinations where the student has once chance to pass or fail. It coursers to me that the solution is to adopt the school approach.

Jon also presenting "Student and staff perceptions of assessment feedback: Myth and reality" Friday.

Student Cheating in the Digital Age

Greetings from the Unviersity of Canberra, where Dr Jon Scott, from University of Leicester, is talking on "Academic integrity: To cheat or not to cheat in the digital age?". One point he made was about the honor codes and student tribunals used in some US universities and if these would work in the UK/Australian university culture.

In my view the universities could learn from the work which the professions, particularly the Australian Computer Society, on the teaching and adoption of professional ethics.

I discuss this in my lecture on ethics "Professional Ethics and Social Issues in Networked Information Systems". The researchers conducted a survey and interviews of ICT professionals on their attitudes to ethics and the IT industry (Lucas, 2008). One finding was that those borne 1981 to 1999 (so called "Generation Y") thought:

1. Ethical regulations should be less important,
2. Job security made a difference to ethical behavior.
3. They had more ethics education than previous generations.

I discuss this in my lecture on ethics "Professional Ethics and Social Issues in Networked Information Systems".

In my view, plagiarism can be dealt with by teaching research writing to the students and assessing it. If students fail to reference material correctly, they will fail those courses and other courses. There is no need to impose some sort of moral condemnation on the students, just identify where they need help with their work and provided it (and ensure those who will not or do not meet the stand never pass).

Jon e is also presenting "Why are students failing? What works to improve retention and success?" at 4.30-6.00pm and "Student and staff perceptions of assessment feedback: Myth and reality" tomorrow.

How to stop cheating in online courses

Came across "How to stop cheating in online courses" (by Eric Wignall, 12 September 2011) in the LinkedIn OnLine Professors forum. This seems a sensible approach to the issue (and not just for on-line cheating). Eric says that research shows that students know that cheating is wrong but see it is as unimportant.

Some strategies Eric suggests:

1. Explain cheating.


2. Create multiple, high quality assessments.


3. Create individual assessments.


4. Give non-graded assessments.


5. Don’t give assessments.


6. Do live ‘check-up’ evaluations.


7. Create an honor code.

Combating Academic Plagiarism

Combating Student Plagiarism: An Academic Librarian's Guide (Chandos Series for Information Professionals) by Lynn D Lampert (Chandos Publishing, 2008) suggests requiring students provide a bibliography with written assignments and also submit drafts and parts of assignments progressively as they work. This is designed to make it more difficult for students to show how they got to their final work. This might also make it easier for the student, rewarding them with marks for the progress of the work and thefore encouraging them to work in stages, rather than leaving everything to just beofre the final deadline for the finised work. This would work with online Learning management Systems, such as Moodle. The student would be able to submit parts of the work as they progressed and the assessor would not be swamped with bits of paper. This might be taken further to provide the student with an online set of tools fort keeping track of their work, including the bibilography. Also for group assignments, an online system with some of the features of social networking could keep track of who contributed what.