Though cheating is certainly not unique to the online environment, and in fact some studies have shown that cheating online is equally or less prevalent than in a physical classroom (see study findings from the USLinks to an external site. and from AustraliaLinks to an external site.), many instructors have reasonable concerns about opportunities for students to cheat online. These concerns may include:
inappropriate access to resources when completing an online assessment
copying answers or text found onlin
sharing answers with other students
contracting with a third party to complete online classwork
misrepresenting material created by generative artificial intelligence (AI)
It's important to consider that what might look like cheating may represent more a lack of understanding of the academic environment than malice on the part of a student. Approaching academic integrity from a mindset of helping students to learn - rather than policing student misbehavior - informs not only our immediate response when we detect what appears to be inappropriate student action, but also our entire approach to designing online learning experiences and assessment.
The Academic Senate adopted an AI Policy on 5/2/2023.
The recommended statement for our syllabi:
"Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas, whether human or artificially generated, and presenting the information as your own. Using any AI system without the prior permission of the instructor is considered plagiarism. All forms of plagiarism violate the Academic Honesty policy and are prohibited in this course."
Approaches to Increasing Academic Integrity Online
Review each tab below to explore different dimensions of strategies to enhance academic integrity online.
Combine or replace objective tests with a wider variety of methods of assessment, such as projects, collaborative work, writing assignments, and personal reflections.
Require students to turn in drafts of projects and written work (for feedback from instructor and/or peers) well in advance of a final due date. This makes wholesale copying (or purchasing) of essays much less likely.
Consider including more formative assessments and activities worth a small amount of points, and making high-stakes objective assessment a smaller portion of the overall course grade. This makes it more difficult for students to contract out course completion to a 3rd party.
Use multiple choice and essay questions requiring application of skills and analysis of knowledge rather than simple factual recall when appropriate. (If recall-type outcomes are important for your class, see below regarding proctoring.)
Design tests as open note/open resource so that you do not get caught in an “arms race” with students. (Such tests also typically place a premium on application and analysis rather than recall.)
Alter assignments and tests from semester to semester rather than reusing assignments for which students can easily pass along answers. Just in case you were not aware, many "homework help" websites are little more than repositories for students to post and retrieve answers to assignments.
Note that many of these pedagogical approaches also align well with equity-minded pedagogies.
Proctoring
The LACCD has contracted with Yuja Verity, a proctoring LTI. There are many options to choose, including requiring a camera on the students and their surroundings, recording the students' screens, disabling copy/paste, and closing other windows/tabs.
Schedule live testing sessions for your class.
If you decide to require proctored exams -- whether live or on camera -- please make sure that your class is properly footnoted in PeopleSoft and that you spell out the requirements in your syllabus.
Ensure that you work with LATTC's Disabled Students office to provide accommodations to students who require them when completing proctored exams.
Code of conduct and instructor leadership
Discuss with students the reasons why academic integrity is important.
Emphasize the benefits (and pleasures!) of truly engaging with course material and learning, rather than focusing on grades.
Develop relationships with students through regular interaction. This will enable you to better detect unusual behaviors and written work. Perhaps more importantly, this will help students to be more likely to feel invested in authentic learning with you. This will also help you decide when to respond to inappropriate student behavior with guidance and correction rather than discipline or punishment.
Have students sign or even jointly develop a statement such as a code of conduct summarizing the class's expectations and requirements for academic honesty.
When testing students through Canvas, the following methods can further reduce the ability for students to cheat. Note that as of 2023, Canvas has two different tools for managing tests – "Classic" Quizzes (the original) and New Quizzes. New Quizzes is still being developed; at this time it has both advantages and limitations (see a New Quizzes FAQLinks to an external site.) compared to the original Quizzes tool, but it is expected to eventually fully replace Quizzes (perhaps by 2024). Links to Canvas guides for both Quizzes and New Quizzes are given following each item below as applicable.
Note: Some of the strategies below (especially limiting student ability to go back and forth between questions or to view multiple questions) may be harmful to students' legitimate test-taking strategies, particularly students with disabilities. We believe that the online testing environment should mimic the face-to-face one as much as possible. In a face-to-face class, students are not prevented from going back and checking their answers.
Disallow Multiple Attempts – Multiple attempts is a great option for a “mastery” quiz where you want students to retake it until they achieve a certain level of proficiency; this isn’t typical of a summative, high-stakes assessment. QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Delay Per-Question Feedback – Providing students feedback on each question can help them learn; delaying the availability of this feedback until after the test availability window is over can help ensure the integrity of the exam. (Note: In Quizzes, instructors can set a specific time when feedback becomes available; in New Quizzes feedback must be manually enabled or disabled.) QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Answer Randomization – Answers to multiple choice questions can be randomized/shuffled so they are presented differently for different students. (Note: In Quizzes this is one setting for the entire quiz; in New Quizzes this is a per-question setting.) QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Present Questions One at a Time – It can be more difficult for students to share answers with friends during testing if questions are only available one at a time. An additional option can prevent students from going back to previous questions, which can further strengthen the integrity of the exam, but can also frustrate students who legitimately realize they made a mistake on a previous question and wish to correct it. QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Question Randomization with a Question Group/Item Bank – Drawing questions randomly from a pool (or pools) can make it even more difficult for students to productively share questions during an exam. Keep in mind that if your pool contains more questions than the number of questions you are drawing from the pool to go into the exam, you need to be careful about maintaining consistency of the questions within the pool (both in terms of outcomes measured and difficulty of the questions). QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Calculated (Formula) Questions – Formula questions can include a range of values for one term/variable. Thus, the same question will have unique answers across different quizzes, but the question can still be auto-graded. QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Require Presentation of ID – if you are not using a physical proctoring center, but you would like students to demonstrate that the person taking the test is the person enrolled in your class, one suggestion is to have students record a brief video holding a picture ID next to their face. This could be done with an Essay question that directs students to access their webcam through the Rich Content Editor and record this. Of course, this requires students to have a webcam (and still wouldn’t prevent the student from doing this, then having someone else complete the rest of the exam). QuizzesLinks to an external site. | New QuizzesLinks to an external site.
Plagiarism and AI prevention
Plagiarism
LACCD licenses Turnitin, which may be used within Canvas to help prevent plagiarism. Many faculty prefer to use it as an educational tool rather than one for policing. This can be done by:
Enabling students to self-check their work with Turnitin (note, however, the AI-generated text capability Turnitin has added in 2023 is not available to students when self-checking work with Turnitin)
Requiring submission of drafts
Educating students about how to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism
Giving students opportunities to revise work
Students should be informed in the syllabus that such software is used in the course and that the software incorporates any student work submitted into its database.
Artificial Intelligence
Large Language Models -- artificial intelligence -- have entered the college space with a bang! There are ethical uses of AILinks to an external site., of course. At the last few Online Teaching Conferences, speakers have insisted that "we embrace artificial intelligence the way math teachers had to embrace the calculator". Consider:
Will you allow AI usage in your classroom?
What are the parameters?
Instructors may designate allowable uses for AI in a particular class. Use of AI outside those parameters is prohibited. Use of AI to augment, enhance, or supplement rather than replace student work might be permissible. Such uses are up to the discretion of the instructor. All uses of AI must be acknowledged per the assignment instructions. Unacknowledged use of AI will be considered plagiarism.
Communicate this in your syllabus, start-of-term Announcements, and on the first day of class. We recommend including a first-week quiz on plagiarism and AI usage.
There are many AI detectors, including one built into Turnitin. None of them are 100% accurate -- including the one in Turnitin. You should always double check by copy/pasting their working into another AI detector. Some options:
What if You Observe a LATTC Student Behaving Inappropriately?
LACCD BP 5500 (Academic Integrity) gives the following examples of academic dishonesty:
"Violations of Academic Integrity include, but are not limited to, the following actions: cheating on an exam, plagiarism, working together on an assignment, paper or project when the instructor has specifically stated students should not do so, submitting the same term paper to more than one instructor, or allowing another individual to assume one’s identity for the purpose of enhancing one’s grade."
If you believe that a student is acting in one of these ways in an online class, consider what you know about the student and whether it's possible this is a moment for further instruction rather than disciplinary action. If you feel stronger action needs to be taken, AP 5520 offers the following potential remedies:
verbal warning,
a lowered assignment grade,
submission of an academic integrity report to the Office of Student Affairs.
You can choose to fill out an Unsatisfactory Notice form (often called an "unsat") and submit it to your department chair. See the Student DisciplineLinks to an external site. page for more information.
Extending Your Professional Learning