Technology Serving Learning Institute Winter 2008 | Rodgers' Sessions | CSTL | Southeast Missouri State University

Description: Technological incompetence or intentional cheating? How can we tell the difference in an online course? How can we reduce our exposure? This session will explore several ways to limit online cheating and instead make the online course a tool to educate students in issues surrounding academic honesty. Included in our explorations will be an in-depth look at the OIS Secure Browser, and the good practices for its implementation in online courses.

E-Dog I Reprise

1. Resolve tech problems early in course by having students do a simple assignment that does not focus much on course content:

   a. "Two truths and a lie" in Forum - get students to talk about themselves; build community; RESPOND to other posts

   b. Personal info assignment in UTest - contact info (more up-to-date than elsewhere), ask intended major, hopes and dreams for course

2. Reduce anonymity as much as possible - send e-mails, ask how things are going

What Can We do about Academic Honesty Issues? Many students plagiarize, and most who do claim ignorance about the issue.

1. Set policy - the least elegant, but, like a law or contract, has the potential to clearly define acceptable practice.
    a. Include a statement in the course syllabus. The statement might take the form of a table:

The list for your course may differ from the one suggested above.

Especially with 21st Century Learners, learning environments that stress collaboration and group work have challenged traditional views on intellectual property, attribution, and plagiarism.

What other factors must we consider as we seek to set fair and manageable policies?

   b. Maintain a Discussion Forum to offer advice on academic honesty issues 

2. Build education on academic honesty into your course assignments - either a standalone assignment or gateway to a content-based assignment

   a. Writing with Sources tutorials: Redhawk Writing's Online Writing Lab

   b. Using software to monitor work     

Google - free and easy to use, but somewhat limited

Turnitin - a little harder to use, but tailored for the academic environment 
     - originality reports
     - wider search
     - not suited to all courses or assignments
     - policing or educating ?
        Students can submit to TII and get an originality report; student can't submit final copy until he/she receives a clean report

     - contact Karl Suhr at Kent Library for further details on using Turnitin and setting up an account

(Link to old TSL Institute sessions:  Winter 2006     Summer 2006)

3. Refine the way Exams are used in online courses - Perfect security unattainable, but we can do better

   a. Arrange for a proctor - treat the process as you would an interaction with your bank over the phone

   b. Use Question Banks in OIS UTest 

To build a Question Bank, you will need to do the following steps:

1. Specify a Subject for the questions that you want to include in the Bank
2. In Delivery > Properties check the box for "Draw questions using Selection Rules"
3. In Selection Rules, click on Add Selection Rule as needed to build your list of questions
   1. specify the five properties that the selected questions will have
4. After you have defined your list of Selection Rules, click on Generate Sample Test
5. Pay close attention to the point values of the questions and the overall Test

Good Question Bank Practices:

1. key questions to measurable learning objectives
2. give meaningful names to question subjects
3. standardize all questions used by a single selection rule to the same type (multiple choice, subjective, etc.)
4. include enough questions to reduce the probability of duplicate exam creation (3X rule)
   1. number of questions in the exam
   2. number of selections for each question
   3. scramble multiple choice/matching options (be careful of question wording here!)
5. tell students in advance that you are using a question bank
6. Wait until after the exam has expired to publish feedback

   c. Use the OIS Secure Browser for tests, especially those not based on a Question Bank. The Secure Browser minimizes, but DOES NOT ELIMINATE the possibility of copying or printing.

• What is the Secure Browser?
• Why should you use it?
• What are its limitations?
• For instructions on using the UTest Secure Browser, read the UTest Advanced Manual

Installation of Secure Browser, aka UTest Browser:

Copy this link or icon to your course for students to download the UTest Browser    OIS Secure Browser 

After the Secure Browser is installed, students will be able to activate it on an as-needed basis. Students will see this message when they encounter a Secure Browser assignment:

Good Secure Browser Practices:

1. Use the display X questions at a time feature; when students go between the pages, it saves their progress.
2. Include an example test in the course early on that they can take, to catch any problems.
3. Limit the number of times a student may take an exam.
4. Tell students that any claims that a connection was lost during an exam will be investigated by the CSTL Tech staff.
5. Reassure students that the exam was successfully completed by setting the exam in UTest to "Notify students by email when they finish this test".

   d. Rethink the design of your exams - for example, use Bloom's Taxonomy in your course design

Bloom’s Taxonomy - the OL environment naturally moves us toward higher levels Evaluation    Synthesis  Analysis  Application  Understanding  Knowledge  How can restructuring your course to emphasize learning at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy encourage academic honesty? Is your course suited to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation? Why or why not?

A few Bloom's Sites: http://faculty. washington.edu/ krumme/guides/ bloom1.html http://www.olemiss .edu/depts/ educ_school/CI/ docs/STAI/ manual8.htm http://eduscapes .com/tap/ topic69.htm