Academic integrity is an important issue to consider in your courses. It’s important to discuss academic integrity with your students and help them understand everything that it covers. Subjects like plagiarism, cheating on exams, and unauthorized collaboration should be talked about and made clear. There are also things you can do as an instructor to encourage academic integrity.

Talk About It

One of the most important things you can do for your students is to take the time to talk about academic integrity. True or False: The intent of a student is considered in academic dishonesty cases? False! The academic integrity policy at the U of A explicitly states that intent does not matter. Even if a student makes an "honest" mistake it is treated the same.

  • Talk about Academic Integrity – A LOT!
  • Discuss with them what constitutes an academic integrity infringement at the beginning of the semester.
  • Explain to them that intent doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you meant to cheat or not.
  • Talk about it again before each exam and big assignment.
  • Remind them of the ways that it can affect their academic lives and future career opportunities if they cheat.
Syllabus and Assignments
Syllabus Statements

  • All faculty are encouraged by the Provost to include the recommended Academic Honesty Syllabus Statement on every course syllabus. The statement can be found on the Provost’s website, along with the full Academic Integrity Policy. It is important for faculty to be able to provide students with answers about their questions related to academic honesty, as well as providing very specific application of the policy for assignments in their courses. For guidance, faculty are encouraged to study the sanction rubric, as well as answers to “what if?” questions.

    “As a core part of its mission, the University of Arkansas provides students with the opportunity to further their educational goals through programs of study and research in an environment that promotes freedom of inquiry and academic responsibility. Accomplishing this mission is only possible when intellectual honesty and individual integrity prevail.”

    “Each University of Arkansas student is required to be familiar with and abide by the University’s ‘Academic Integrity Policy’ which may be found at provost.uark.edu Students with questions about how these policies apply to a particular course or assignment should immediately contact their instructor.”  From honesty.uark.edu/faculty/

Assignments

  • Be clear and consistent regarding your expectations for citations on assignments, written exams, etc.
  • Be clear regarding your expectations for collaboration on all different types of graded activities. Define when and what counts as collaboration.
  • Add instructions about SafeAssign self-check to Blackboard or your syllabus. Here is an example:
  • EXAMPLES: Here is an example of explicit instructions related to academic integrity and discussion boards:
    • It is a violation of academic integrity on a discussion post if you do the following:
      • Use anyone else’s work (past semester or present) as your own.
      • Use your own work from a past semester for the current assignment.
      • Plagiarize by copy/paste off the web, copying directly out of the textbook or any other source.
      • Plagiarize by using ideas from any source without citing the source when writing this post.
      • Change or edit a post that has already been graded.
      • Work with others to complete the discussion assignment.
      • Having someone else write your discussion post.
      • Any other activity that is covered in the University Academic Integrity Policy.
In Class Exams
Seating Arrangements

  • Create a seating chart to make it less likely for students to be sitting next to their friends.
  • If possible, spread the students out in the classroom.  This will both reduce the temptation to cheat and also make it more obvious if someone is trying to do so.
  • Use an exam cover sheet.  Include clear instructions, a list of any unauthorized materials, and an academic honesty pledge.
    • example: “I pledge that I will not give or receive any assistance on any exams, AND I will report any infractions of the academic integrity policy.”
  • To prevent students from bringing in blue books that already have notes in them, have the students hand in the books and then pass them out randomly to students.  If there is anything written in them, the student who received it will very likely let your know.

Unauthorized Materials

  • Announce any unauthorized materials at the beginning of every exam.
  • Make a list of unauthorized materials on the whiteboard.
  • Mention the unauthorized materials on your syllabus.
  • List unauthorized materials on your exam cover sheet.

Exam Versions

  • Use new versions of your exams each semester.
  • Use more than one version of the exam in each class.  You can print each version on a different colored paper to make it easier to ensure that no one is sitting next to another student with the same test version.

Notes

  • Make your rules on notes very clear.
  • Allowing one page of notes can help with students who smuggle in notes in various ways.

Preventing Impersonation

  • Have your students hand in their UA ID card at the beginning of the exam.  Give it back only once they have completed the exam and turned it in.
  • Be aware of the fact that when giving lab exams that require you to go to multiple locations in a room, you must be extra vigilant for unauthorized collaboration.
  • Use additional proctors whenever possible.  This makes it less tempting to cheat and provides an opportunity for the documentation of suspicious activity by multiple sources.
Online or Remote Exams
Multiple Choice, True/False, Matching Exams

  • Use Respondus Lockdown Browser. This software locks the student’s computer and does not allow them to access the internet or any other applications on their computer.
  • Be sure that the students understand how to use the Respondus Lockdown Browser by having them go through the Student Quick Start Guide. Students can call the Help Desk for assistance.
  • Use Respondus Monitor in addition to LockDown Browser. Monitor records their web cam and uses AI to flag suspicious behavior.
  • Use honor pledges at the beginning or end of the exam.
    • Example: I certify that all work on this assessment is entirely my own and does not violate the University of Arkansas Academic Integrity policy.
  • Include a question within the online assessment that requires the student to acknowledge specific rules associated with unauthorized materials.
    • Example: I acknowledge that it is a violation of the academic integrity policy to use any unauthorized materials for this assignment.
  • If you use a publisher test bank, chances are the questions are online. Try changing the questions and answers slightly to ensure that students are learning the material and not memorizing answers.
  • You can create “pools” of questions in Blackboard that pulls questions in randomly to an exam.
    • Example: You can have a pool of questions from each chapter and pull in 5 from each chapter.  OR you can create easy, medium, and difficult questions and pull in from those pools randomly.
  • Be sure to randomize questions within the Blackboard exam settings.
  • You might consider randomizing the answers as well. This helps with academic integrity violations.
    • Note: If you choose to do this, avoid “all of the above” as an answer choice and instead write “all of these answers” because D may be A or B on an exam if answers are randomized.
  • If you create large pools of questions, for instance 200, and have a 50 question exam, each exam may be completely unique. Especially if questions and answers are randomized.
  • If you suspect collaboration in an online exam, you can submit a request to find suspected collaboration based on IP address and time of exam. Notify students of this fact in advance!
  • You can also view the access logs for exams taken in Blackboard.

Essay or Short Answer Exams

  • We generally do not recommend Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor for essay type exams because the save function is not automatic like in Word.  If a student takes an essay exam and does not phycially click the save button every few minutes and their internet has a hiccup or some other issue occurs, they could lose their work in an already stressful situation. We recommend the following instead:
      • Consider using an open book exam and limiting the time in which a student is permitted to complete the exam. Generally students have less time to consult sources when it is timed.
      • You can also create questions that focus on applying ideas and concepts that are less “googleable.”
      • You can have the submission link automatically disappear at a certain time so students cannot submit after the deadline has passed.
Clickers
Plagiarism
  • Be sure that students understand what constitutes plagiarism.
  • Try having “soft deadlines.”  Have an official due date, but allow students to hand in assignments late with a penalty.  This prevents last moment plagiarism done by desperate, exhausted students. Alternatively, you could give students a fixed number of late days that you can apply to any assignment throughout the semester with no penalty.
  • You can require rough drafts and indicate that you will not take points off for citation errors.  This gives you a chance to correct any mistakes that students may make before the assignment is due.
  • Let students know that you will submit the papers through Safe Assign in Blackboard.
  • Have students submit mini assignments related to the paper or assignment ahead of time.  This encourages students to do the work ahead of time and reduces the likelihood of procrastination.
    • Example: the first assignment is an annotated bibliography, second is an introduction paragraph, and third is a rough draft.  All due before the final assignment.
Other Ideas for Encouraging Academic Honesty
  • Google your class from time to time to see what might be out there about it.  Sometimes you might stumble across ways that they were intending to cheat.
  • If you suspect plagiarism on graduate student work and would like to investigate further, call Academic Initiatives & Integrity for access to Turnitin plagiarism detection software.
  • You can run a course report in Blackboard that shows user activity in a course.
  • Chat tools like GroupMe are often used by students to chat about class, share notes, and ask questions.  You can ask students to invite you to the GroupMe.  You can also create your own group chat using Microsoft Teams which uses students U of A email address and all students have for free.
  • Explaining to students why you assign a particular activity or assignment often helps them to understand the importance of the assignment. Understanding the importance of the assignment may prevent students from procrastinating or resorting to academically dishonest behavior.
  • Be sure to consult Academic Initiatives and Integrity if you have questions.
Additional Resources