assessment design as part of deterring students from

plagiarism:

Jude Carrollfor University of Kent, January 2013

Why focus on assessment design?You have to start somewhere

Assessment is the students’ experience of university

Probably, changes will mean high impact + relatively low demand….. but changes will require push and support

Summing up: Can assessment design deter students from plagiarism?

Task level: Designing OUT opportunities for easy copying, taking & faking

Programme level: Designing IN chances to learn and practice

Policy level: Designing penalties that can shape decisions

A reminder….

1.Awareness raising [Knowing what….]

2.Teaching the skills

3.Designing programmes for skills practice & feedback

4.Designing assessments to discourage copying

5.Spotting it when it happens (and doing something)

6.Dealing with cases using procedures that are fast, fair, and defensible

the holistic approac

h

First, we need a few assessment tasks…..

Can we have 5 or 6 examples of assessments / coursework tasks your colleagues set [or that you set….] for students

Have a think, then be ready to tell me

Why do it?

How can you do it?

How to design assessments that make copying, finding, faking, buying etc etc more difficult……?

The clue is in the definition….“Submitting the words, ideas or work product

of a named person or source in a situation where originality is

expectedas if it is the result of your own work

for credit or other benefit.” Fishman, 2010

Three design strategies to deter plagiarism

1. Yes: you design ‘make an answer’ tasks No: you set ‘find an answer’ tasks

2. Focus on process: you get students started, you make the process valuable, you make them work

3. Authentication: You check, ‘Who did this work?’ You make students think, ‘Will I get spotted as a plagiarist???’

Wiki-friendly courseworkConcepts, categories or topics (‘Jean

Muir: fashion designer’)

Explain, discuss, describe (‘What are the best ways to manage a diverse workforce?)

Show-you-know tasks (‘ ….causes of the current recession’)

one-answer questions (‘Role of CO2 in the physiology of emphysema’)

Many two-concept questions are also Wiki-friendly…..

‘Using anthropological theory, analyse the Eurovision song contest’

Ten relevant pre-written sources …. in 2009

easy-to-pretend coursework

Go and interview x about y and write it up.

Make a change in your own lifestyle designed to improve health, keep notes about the impact, and report after a month

Write a marketing strategy for company x

Make or find? 1. What factors influence the success or failure

of speculators on the commodities market?

2. Download a current set of commodity futures prices [ then five questions about how to analyse and interrogate the download].

If your answer to (5) shows an imperfect hedge result, explain the probable main reasons for this. If your result is a perfect hedge, explain why this is unexpected given this is a contango market.

Rank the factors relevant to the success or otherwise of speculating in this example. Explain the ranking. Rosser, U of Coventry, 2008

What strategies were used? Download some data.

Analyse it

Make a judgment [perfect hedge or imperfect hedge?]

Justify your judgement.

Explain the unexpected in a specific context [a contango market]

Rank the factors relevant to the success or otherwise of speculating in this example.

IndividualisedRecentUsing the

data

Applied theory in a specific context

‘Higher order thinking’

Summing up so far

Go for

Individual, recent

Application in a specific context

Specified data / sources

Higher-order thinking

Avoid

wiki-friendly topics

wiki-friendly combinations

one-answer or ‘show you know’ questions

NO: An essay on ‘smoking and public health’

YES?: Find 3 ‘stop smoking’ campaigns. Rank them as being worth government funding because they improve health. Justify your ranking, using your own criteria. Explain your criteria using data.

YES??: Select a recent decision made somewhere in the world on smoking. Is it likely or unlikely to have a positive impact on [population zzz]? Why? Draft advice to a health- promotion campaign to strengthen impact.

YES??: Here’s a case study, evaluate it against xxx criteria.

YES?: Debate, ‘The best way to improve public health is to stop people smoking’. [write the script in class]

1. 3 campaigns, rank them against criteria for funding. Justify the rank.

2. Recent decisions w. impact on smoking. Most / least likely to have a positive impact? Why? Draft advice to a health promotion committee.

3. Here’s a case study, evaluate it against xxx criteria.

4. Debate

5. Take on a role in designing a ‘stop-smoking’ campaign. Prioritise your arguments + support each one with cited evidence from recent reliable studies.

What is the underpinning principle that makes students do the work?

Blocks to this suggestion?

Time and timing ( to create, to mark ….)

‘Tried and tested’Spotting one’s own Choosing the wrong method for

checking….

How would you counter or deal with these objections?

Strategies that value the

process1. Force students

to start

2. Make the process public

3. Make the process valuable

4. Make the task significant

1. stages, drafts, chunks…..)

2. peer review; on-line posting; observe it

3. assess it; make students reflect

4. authentic, personal, individual

Strategies that check ‘Who did this?’Make students change the final product under

observed conditions…

Meta-writing (writing about their writing under observed conditions)

Triangulation through examination

Random oral examination of a %

Create a corpus via Turnitin to check across the cohort

Summing up: Can assessment design deter students from plagiarism?

Programme level: Designing IN chances to learn and practice

Task level: Designing OUT opportunities for easy copying and taking

Policy level: Designing penalties that shape decisions

You try it: 15 minutes

List of strategies + List of assignments.

Task: redesign them so the students work the learning outcomes are

assessed the burden on teachers is realistic.

Be ready to share what you learned from doing this

Teaching students to use sources correctly…..

Why do this?

When to do this?Who should do this?

on line materials

published materials

lecture notes

other students’ work

publicly available code

data

diagrams

The sub-skills of scholarship1. Finding ‘good stuff’2. Making notes – keeping link

between source and notes3. Weaving in others’ words and

ideas : summary, direct quotes, paraphrasing

4. Structuring an argument, using evidence

5. Signaling use (formal, informal) – when to signal? what to signal? how?

6. Using an agreed referencing system consistently

Design issues for writing skills

alerting students – ‘wake up!’ ‘New game, new rules’

early diagnostics (‘Ah, I have these weaknesses …)

teaching all the skillssafe practice and feedbackprogression – improving skill useachieving exit- level competence

How to design in teaching and practice: Programme-level thinkingMapping for skills developmentSharing the burden….Referring: Using external support

and guidanceEmbedding skills development in

real, discipline-specific tasksPlanning for progression (moving

to exit-level skills)Assessing & recognising skills

Programme mapping

Programme design toolsSharing the burden…. the whole

programme takes some of the teaching tasks

Using external support and guidance

Embedding specific skills development in real, discipline-specific tasksGetting real: Paired discussion 10 minutes

each way. How would these work in your own

programme?

Exit round: ‘…the key message I would take to my colleagues on the programme about design to deter plagiarism….