Academic Integrity issues in a large topic in the School of Education

1
Academic Integrity issues in a large topic in the
School of Education

• Dr Pam Bartholomaeus
• 10/11/15
• EHL Faculty Scholar program 2015

2
The context

• EDUC3526 231 students
• EDUC9133 26 students
• 257 students
• 12 classes
• teaching shared with 5 casual academics
• Assessment tasks for this topic include 3
  extended prose assignments. Students are required
  to submit each of these assignments to Turnitin.

3
How did it work?

• Tutors were similar to the students in needing to
  understand that the amount of matching was not a
  good indication of academic integrity.
• For each assignment work I was asked to look at
  the work of several students.
• A conversation with one tutor led to the
  realisation that four students had worked
  together to plan their first assignment.
• Despite hoping tutors would take note of students
  in their classes who had not submitted their work
  to Turnitin I needed to do this.

4
But

• A common problem with students work was the
  failure to enclose quotations in inverted commas.
  
• The quality and consistency in managing Academic
  Integrity could have been better.
• A recent audit of the first assignment in
  Turnitin has indicated several assignments were
  not questioned that should have been
• In particular, one assignment has matching with
  the work of a student from several years ago that
  was not noted.
• Another student failed to use quotation marks
  where appropriate. She was interviewed about her
  work for Assignment 3. An interview about her
  first assignment would have been better.

5

• Most tutors spent time carefully checking
  Turnitin reports for the first assignment.
• One tutor did not look at Turnitin reports at all
  for the second assignment!
• Another tutor spent about 10 mins checking
  reports for Assignment 2 (for approximately 70
  students)
• Junk matching was problematic, particularly for
  Assignment 3
• For Assignment 3 I decided to withhold some
  results until I had interviewed the students. In
  most cases these were students whose Turnitin
  reports I decided warranted further exploration.

6
Academic Integrity in a small topic

• Nested assignments
• Oral presentation of a literature review (not
  assessed, but some feedback to students at the
  end of the class)
• A literature review submitted for assessment
• A poster prepared drawing on the literature
  review which is then presented to an audience and
  submitted for assessment.
• Where a student changed her topic after the oral
  presentation I spoke with her, ascertained the
  reason for the change, and gave her a short
  extension for her written submission.
• This process enabled me to monitor students
  progress towards the final assessment task, the
  poster.

7
SACE and Academic Integrity

• Students are expected to meet the same levels of
  Academic Integrity in the senior secondary
  schooling
• SACE policies for Academic Integrity are similar
  to the Flinders University policies
• Student are required to acknowledge the work of
  others including the words of others and direct
  quotations in inverted commas referencing
  sources accurately and ensuring that
  paraphrasing is of high quality.
• Guides are provided for referencing. Reading
  guides are provided as possible templates for
  students to use as they collect information.
• It is unclear how carefully Academic Integrity
  requirements are explained to students in their
  senior secondary years.

8
For further thought

• Training for casual academics in the expectations
  we have of our students in relation to Academic
  Integrity and in the interpretation of reports
  from Turnitin will assist with consistency in
  Academic Integrity.
• Clearer guidelines for students on collusion and
  how it can be avoided.
• The Turnitin reports can be interrogated in a
  number of ways using the software. More training
  in ways to use the software would be helpful.
• More training for students in understanding
  Turnitin reports and using these reports to
  improve their writing and study habits.
• I shall give careful thought to including more
  focus in the topics EDUC3526/9133 on the
  importance of comprehension of sources and the
  role this can play in assisting students to
  maintain high levels of Academic Integrity.