3. Assessments
Staff are encouraged to review the assignments and examinations they set and consider whether they provide easy opportunities for cheating. Carroll and Appleton (2001) working through Oxford Brookes University have produced a document entitled 'Plagiarism, A Good Practice Guide' which suggests some strategies that might be adopted in the effort to discourage students from plagiarism.
- Change the content of assessment tasks each year or each time the course is taught to prevent inter-year copying, which is an issue reported to us every semester.
- Replace learning outcomes that ask for knowledge and understanding with those that require analysis, evaluation and synthesis.
- Consider adding information gathering to learning outcomes.
- Create individualised tasks with multiple solutions to ensure individual effort (e.g. ask students to compare two things or ask for explanations of how end results were achieved. This might be particularly useful in assessing individual contributions to group work).
- Set a range of integrated assessment tasks where coursework and exams crosscheck and reinforce each other. It should be made clear to students that cheating in the earlier tasks will makes later ones more difficult.
- Consider building in tasks to assist students, particularly weaker ones, to manage their time more effectively. These tasks should require student effort but not staff time and might involve intermediate deadlines by which a non-assessed plan or draft must be submitted. This might help students avoid last minute panics when they might be tempted to plagiarise or use AI in order to submit in time.
Other options considered by various sources were:
- Questions should not ask for answers that are close to lecture handouts or a single text, or that are easily answerable by AI.
- Consider alternatives to setting essays for coursework such as open-book tests, in class or supervised tests. Random viva examinations might be useful as back up for essays.
- Require students to complete and sign the University's Declaration of Originality Form (or online equivalent), confirming that the work is their own, particularly for major pieces of work.
- Provide specific instructions about what is expected and/or acceptable in briefing notes about each assignment. Be particularly clear when giving instructions where group work is required about what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of collaboration i.e. students should work together during preparation, but the submission must be their own work.
Staff can seek advice on designing assessments from ADD.