Notes for Course Facilitator

Summary:

This page provides instructional strategies and best practices on managing academic integrity and honesty in the online environment. 

Gentle reminder: Update all content highlighted in yellow to reflect your institution.

By moving online, a multitude of questions may arise from what can feel like the loss of a controlled environment. Some questions may race through your head such as, “Are my students going to cheat? And if so, what can I do to minimize those attempts?” Although there are many ways to combat cheating, let’s face it, some students will attempt it regardless of course mode. In the face of larger numbers of students in online courses and the challenge of designing effective assessments in an online environment, you may need to implement scalable strategies that mitigate academic integrity issues. 

 


Instructional Strategies & Best Practices

Academic Integrity

“Do you expect technology to compensate for a lack of ethics?" (Dzuiban, 2010) 

In regard to academic integrity, Dr. Dzuiban, director of The Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness (RITE) has sometimes challenged participants in faculty development with that question. No matter how effective or advanced the assessment technology, nor how creative an instructor may be in designing assessment activities, if students are determined to cheat or shift responsibility for their own work, they will certainly find a way.

This perspective is not generally popular, but its reality allows us to rethink our approach to effective assessment in all modalities, especially for online learning. While reading the module materials and keeping in mind your own instructor experiences, please consider the following focal points:

Academic Honesty

Academic honesty is a point of concern for all instructors. At <Replace - Institution Name>, we have a variety of strategies that will help minimize dishonesty in their course activities. <Add institution resources>

 


Optional Further Reading

If you would like more information related to academic integrity and honesty, check out the following references. Each contains a wealth of information that you will find helpful now and in the future.

 


References

 

Creative Commons License

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.