Remote Assessment and Academic Integrity
April 29, 2020 / Bill Reynolds, PhD / Tags: learning, remote, exam, teaching, Assessment, integrity, online, cheating, honesty
The subject of online assessments continues to be a hot topic in the mainstream higher ed media and on academic listservs. We are revisiting this topic in light of recent resources shared on the web and elsewhere and because many faculty members are currently organizing courses to be taught remotely this summer. As always, if you would like to follow up on any of the topics below, please contact the Lucas Center or your instructional designer in the Department of Digital Learning.
- For those of you who wish to start with the research literature and take an evidence-based approach to the topic of assessment and academic integrity, you can find an annotated bibliography on the topic HERE.
- Honor codes can be used to emphasize integrity and, if applied effectively, reduce incidents of academic dishonesty.
- Tom Tobin, whose ideas we have featured in past blog entries, shared a chapter called “How Can Course Design Help Prevent Online Cheating?”
- “Authentic assessment” is one of the features of online course design that has been found to encourage academic honesty.
- Online exam proctoring is an approach chosen by many institutions and faculty to reduce academic dishonesty. Proctoring has been criticized as a lucrative extension of “surveillance capitalism,” however, and the journal Hybrid Pedagogy published a lengthy critique of the proliferation of remote proctoring earlier this month. Based on similar arguments to those raised in that article, UC Berkeley entirely eliminated online proctoring of exams, at least temporarily. Privacy and accessibility were cited as the main reasons.
- Finally, if you have a spare hour, there are a number of useful suggestions in this webinar on technological tips for academic integrity.
If you have additional ideas, advice, suggestions, music, or funny bits that you would like to share with your colleagues, send it all to wreynolds@fgcu.edu or lucascenter@fgcu.edu and we will post it to the blog.
