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Directorate of Human Resources Fair assessment Jude Carroll 7 May 2004 University of Stirling Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development “Good practice” underpins fairness Integrated course design Appropriate tasks that encourage learning Transparent task briefs Valid assessment criteria Reliable decision-making when marking Timely feedback that links to the assessment criteria Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development First requirement for fairness: understanding the rules There are rules – they are culture-specific, changing, often only tacit and implicit Aim for students’ pain-free learning New ways may mean students modifying (or setting to one side) previous rules Their apprenticeship and your patience [but not ignoring, implying or hoping] Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Teaching the rules: implicit or explicit? -Writing “ref?” 4 times in red ink in the margin of student work then giving it a good mark -Only marking the first 2000 words if a student hands in 3500 when asked for 2000 -Deducting 5 marks for poor referencing practice in a Year 2 essay -Deciding 2 students colluded so giving each 30 marks in work worth 60 -Telling students at induction “You must not plagiarise” Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Suppose students say they understand the definition of collusion. List the ways they discover answers to questions like: -Who can I ask for help? -What kind of help is ok? -At what point does help become NOT ok? -How much similarity between my work and others’ will be ok? How much similarity is too much? -Is it ok to study together? OK to share ideas? OK to share writing up? -How can I use other students’ work acceptably? Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Academic apprenticeship Practice, targeted feedback, more practice - yes Hoping and using implicit methods – no How? -early diagnostic activities with targeted feedback on academic rules -peer feedback, perhaps linked to course requirements -whole group feedback after sampling -assessing the student’s use of feedback in the final grade Excellent written support and guidance Activities that direct students to access written guidance Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Plagiarism: cheating or misunderstanding? What is it? “passing off others work as your own, intentionally or unintentionally” The message: Not understanding or not using academic conventions correctly is not cheating but it is plagiarism and it is not acceptable. Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Cheating: what’s going on in the UK? “Deliberate breaking of regulations for personal, unfair benefit” e.g. -copying texts / designs / structures/ choreography -cut-and-paste from the Web -wholesale downloading/buying essays -ghost writing -using translation programmes -re-submitting work -mis-shelving books -free-loading in assessed group work -lying when seeking extensions, extenuating circumstances etc And? Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Wake up call needed? 1999 (US) 13% unattributed cut-and-paste 2003(US) 41% unattributed cut-and-paste 2004 (UK) 61% “sometimes or at least once” http://www.coursework.info/ “a collaborative project to preserve intellectual and academic information and catalogue it online for the benefit of students. With over 63,000 essays and courseworks and 49,000 registered users Coursework.Info offers the largest U.K. orientated academic database in the world.” Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development New documents added • • • • • Wednesday, April 07 2004 (387) Tuesday, April 06 2004 (275) Monday, April 05 2004 (409) Friday, April 02 2004 (312) Wednesday, March 31 2004 (95) Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Protecting the majority: Students who don’t cheat are angry and discouraged if those who do are rewarded. Strategies for deterrence need not be onerous or overwhelming. The good news: you can start anywhere. The bad news: you are unlikely to be effective unless you combine several actions and work with colleagues. Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Six things individuals can do 1. Design out opportunities, design in checks against plagiarism 2. Induct students into academic rules and conventions 3. Teach writing skills and provide safe practice 4. Help create a culture where people don’t turn a blind eye 5. Use detection, including electronic detection, judiciously 6. Participate in consensual attempts at devising fair tariffs Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Detetection strategies [Health warning: detection alone will never deter.] Electronic via Google or Plagiarism Advisory Service (iParadigms) Collusion detectors (CopyCatch) Interviewing about the process Viva on content Responding to ‘smoking guns’ eg: Typex-ed name with biro re-write! Most common: “Eagle eye” tactics Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Detection: eagle eye tactics • Change of language, of level or of discourse style • “Smoking guns” such as urls left in • Strange bibliographies, mixed referencing systems, dated references only • Anachronisms • Individual words outwith student vocabulary; perfect punctuation • American spelling • Out-of-character level of work • Fully finished work, no evidence of process • “This reads as strangely familiar” Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Unfair punishment: some story telling Ignoring until the Honours dissertation then going for big penalties Ignoring in the first year without explicit teaching Ignoring in some students and not others Ignoring in some disciplines and not others; different rules in different disciplines but not explained Passing all cases to an overworked Head of Department who does nothing for 6 months then opts for no action. Letting individual academics set tariffs Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Fair assessment at the level of teachers 1. Good assessment practice: clear explicit briefs, dates etc 2. Skills teaching, skills practice and feedback 3. Being explicit about academic values, modelling them, having high expectations about learning 4. Designing out easy cheating [Carroll (2002) A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education] 5. Working towards a “no-blind-eyes” culture 6. Lobbying for systems that do not punish for detecting plagiarism Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Fair assessment at programme levels 1. Varied, appropriate reliable assessment and not too much of it! 2. Clear induction into academic values, skills and conventions – “thou shalt” before “thou shalt not”. Not muddling induction with teaching 3. Modelling and encouraging academic integrity 4. Extra support for those who need it. Treating everyone the same is not the same as treating everyone equally. Support offered in ways that don’t punish. 5. No “go soft” strategies as a way of seeking an easy life Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Fair assessment at institutional level 1. Recent, widely discussed and agreed academic conduct regulations appropriate to the real world of 2004, not the world of 1985. 2. Penalties that are timely, transparent, consistent and defensible. 3. Using Academic Conduct Specialists 4. Implementing tariff-based punishment systems to seek consistency.