Prevent, Detect, and Respond

• Emphasize the importance of the writing process. By doing so, you are placing value on their learning process and stressing the importance of honesty rather than the finished product itself. Create papers that students complete in stages. For example, break up a paper by setting deadlines for a topic, outline, draft, and then the final work. This way, you are able to familiarize yourself with the student's writing style, monitor the stages of their writing process, and provide active feedback for improvement.
   
• Lower the stakes. Include more small papers rather than one big paper. Ensure the grade weight of the paper reflects the value of the learning outcome(s). Essentially, make your papers easier to complete than to easier to cheat. Increase intrinsic motivation. Give a sense of control and ownership by allowing students to choose topics of their own choice. Show that you value their work by providing them an opportunity for a class presentation or poster session to showcase their learning.
   
• Outline expectations for success. Provide oral and written instructions required for completion of the paper (citation guidelines, format, number of sources needed, etc.). Supply students with a marking rubric and evaluation critera. Present examples of successful papers, if possible.
   
• Make learning meaningful. Be explicit to students the reasons underlying the paper. What should they be learning and why is it important? How does it achieve the learning outcomes for the course? What new skills and knowledge does it produce? Further, discuss consequences of missed learning opportunities to stress your desire for their overall success in the course.
   
• Avoid assigning general or repeated topics where students can easily find published papers online.
   
• Clarify the resources allowed and not allowed for use in completing the paper. Explain what you consider to be acceptable use of information found on the Internet.
   
• Clearly define what constitutes as plagiarism and explain the possible disciplinary measures. Show examples of permissible work and impermissible work. Review our tips above on how to promote academic integrity regarding plagiarism.
   
• Provide additional resources when requiring citations and references.
   
• Refer students to relevant campus services such as the Writing Support Desk in Leddy Library and our preventing plagiarism tips.

Before and during the exam:

• Change your exam every term. Even minor changes. such as changing the order of questions or using different versions of the exam, make a difference.
   
• Provide oral and written instructions in advance concerning material allowed and not allowed in the exam room (pens, calculators, pencils, erasers vs. cell-phones, smart watches, pencil cases).
   
• Be clear with expectations you have regarding exam conduct. For example, be explicit when telling students of what constitutes unauthorized aid/cheating (textbooks, notes, calculator, talking). You may refer students to the University's policy on Conduct of Exams and Tests.
   
• Have students place all of their belongings at the front or side of the room.
   
• Wherever possible, require students to write final answers in pen.
   
• Check student cards at the very beginning of the exam.
   
• Administer alternating versions of the exam so that students seated next to each other are not writing identical exams.
   
• Provide scrap paper if required, rather than allowing students to bring their own.
   
• Formulate questions in which students are required to apply knowledge rather than memorize and reproduce answers.
   
• Carefully proctor your exams and ensure that you have a sufficient number of proctors for the size of the class.
   
• Count the number of students, exams, booklets, and/or scantrons distributed at the beginning of the exam and re-count at the end of the exam. This will ensure that you have received every material that you have distributed equal to the number of students.
   

Grading the exam:

• In pen, clearly, mark the incorrect answers on the student's exam by striking through the answer. This ensures that the student is not able to erase and edit their response after their exam is returned to them.
   
• In pen, cross out any and all blank pages in the student's answer booklet to ensure that the student is not able to add anything after their exam is returned to them.

Additional Resources:

The following websites include additional helpful tips for the prevention of cheating in tests/examinations:

Tips to Prevent Cheating, Office of Student Judicial Affairs, University of California, Davis

Prevent Cheating on Exams, McGill University 

Beginning of course:

• Present students with learning outcomes and make subject matter meaningful. Cheating significantly decreases when students believe that learning has a purpose. Conversely, students are more likely to cheat when they perceive subject matter to be unimportant or insignificant. Take the time to address what skills and knowledge students will gain from the course overall and each assignment.
   
• Build positive relationships with students. Students’ perception of faculty can also affect cheating. More specifically, students are less likely to cheat when they respect their instructors and find instructors to be friendly. Do your best to provide thoughtful, immediate feedback and respond to discussion posts from students.
   
• Provide detailed grading criteria. Present students with rubrics at the onset of assignments so they know exactly how they will be graded and what it takes to earn a successful grade.
   
• Define cheating. Provide students with a clear definition of cheating and relevant examples. Convey the importance of academic integrity to students by incorporating Bylaw 31: Academic Integrity into the course syllabus. You may also request that students sign an Honesty Pledge where they agree that they have read and understood the respective academic policy.

Administering exams:

• Mix objective and subjective questions. While online testing can include objective measures (multiple choice, multiple answer, true/false, fill in the blank, etc.), you should also include short answer or essay questions. This type of question is more subjective in nature and may demand a deeper understanding of the student. While mixing objective and subjective type questions may not discourage or stop sharing of information, it may limit the effect on the student’s final grade.
   
• Use question pools. Rather than using a fixed number of items that remain unchanged for each administration of the test, consider creating a question pool. Questions can be grouped by any number of criteria, including topic, subject matter, question type or difficulty of question. A pool will generate an assessment with randomized questions selected by you. Pools can be created from new questions or questions in existing tests or pools. Pools are most effective when there are large numbers of questions in one group. For example, one might have a pool of true/false questions, another of multiple choice and a third for fill in the blank. You could then create an assessment drawing a specific number of questions from each of the question-type pools. You can also add new questions to pools each time the course is taught to expand the variability of questions. Conversely, older questions can be removed.
   
• Limit automatic feedback. Limit what types of feedback is displayed to students upon completion of a test. Available test options include test ‘Score’, ‘Submitted Answers’, ‘Correct Answers’, and ‘Feedback’. Providing test scores is important feedback that indicates how well students have performed and should be made available. However, through a process of elimination, students may be able to determine the correct answer for each test question if their submitted answers are identified as incorrect, or if the correct answer is provided. Students could lose the incentive to both prepare for testing or to seek out correct answers by reviewing lecture notes, assigned readings, or through group discussion after completing tests. Thus, you might reconsider whether to include ‘Submitted Answers’ as an option to be displayed to students. This is especially relevant if you have allowed students to repeat tests. Each time a test was taken, students could attempt a different answer for a test question that was previously graded as incorrect. Correct answers to all test questions could eventually be accumulated and passed on to other students, or to students of future classes.
   
• Display questions one at a time. If a test has more than 5 questions, do not choose the ‘All at Once’ option for displaying all the questions on the same screen. It is quite easy for students to take a screen capture of the displayed questions and share them with other students. While students can still screen capture pages with single questions, or even type them into a document, it is more time consuming.
   
• Post answers after all students have taken the test. This will prevent students from being able to share correct answers with others who have yet to take the test.

• Explain clearly what level of collaboration is acceptable. If you permit students to work together, clarify if the submitted work must be in their own words or if it can be identical.
   
• Rotate assignment topics so that no two similar assignments are used in back-to-back years.
   
• Use different versions of the assignment for each course section. Provide assignment outlines and deadlines well in advance. This way, you are providing ample time for students to complete such assignments.

• Encourage your GAs/TAs to be vigilant during labs. Encourage them to move from station to station, monitor each student's work in progress, and offer guidance when needed. By doing so, they are ensuring that work is done individually and that students are receiving immediate assistance.
   
• Be very clear about the level of acceptable collaboration in labs. Include this information on course outlines and in instructions for assignments and lab reports. State that lab reports from previous semesters or years cannot be reused without permission.
   
• If possible, modify your lab exercises every year or every term, if possible. Create more lab exercises than needed for a year or semester (e.g. have 20 for a 12 lab course) and rotate them. Even small changes from year to year will show students that results from previous years are not useful.
   
• Provide students ample time during the lab to write their report or summary to help prevent unauthourized collaboration.
   
• Place importance on the “process” of the experiment rather than the end results.
   
• Avoid penalizing students for not having a correct end product or result as a way to prevent them from feeling that they have to copy or make-up data.
   
• Offer a lab make-up date so that students have the opportunity redo the experiment.

Clues that a paper may be plagiarized or recycled:

• No citations where ideas that could not originate with the student are expressed.
   
• Change of citation styles or false references.
   
• Similarity to a text you know, or other papers you have graded.
   
• Inconsistency in fonts, style, phrasing, and vocabulary.
   
• Mixed up spelling styles, for example, American and Canadian stylings: both "color" and "colour", "centre" and "center".
   
• Elevated language or argument beyond what you would expect from the student.
   
• Strange or sophisticated punctuation, typographical errors, font changes, or formatting.
   
• Work that is not entirely on topic or where the topic shifts midway through the assignment.
   
• References to previous years’ lectures.

 

Ways to detect plagiarism:

• SafeAssign
   
• Verify the file properties of the paper. Determine the date created, author and date last modified to ensure the authenticity of the paper and the author. 

Clues that a student may be cheating:

• Constant fidgeting or shifting in seat.
   
• Looking at neighbour, lap, sleeve, and/or hat.
   
• Watching for position of proctors.
   
• Covering something with test paper.
   
• Writing answers in large letters.
   
• Long and/or frequent washroom breaks.

Ways to detect cheating:

• Check all items on students’ desks.

• Be aware of items in students’ pockets.

• Accompany students to the washroom (remain outside in the hallway).

• Check washrooms both before and after students take breaks.

• Take note of lengthy washroom breaks.

• Diligent proctoring (walk around the classroom)

Clues that a student is cheating:

• Similar grades and similar answers/mistakes to another student.
   
• Completing the assessment abnormally quick.
   
• Similar duration of time to completing the assessment (same start and end time).
   
• Similar wording of another student.
   
• Similar main idea and supporting evidence of another student.
   
• In calculations, no or few processes are used, but the answer is correct (no elaborate work is shown).

Ways to detect cheating:

• Verify the file properties of the online assignment, if possible. Determine the date created, author and date last modified to ensure if the original authour matches the student.

• Similar wording to another student's work.
   
• Similar mistake(s) to another student's work.
   
• A similar main idea and supporting evidence to another student's work.
   
• In calculations, no or few processes are used, but the answer is correct (no elaborate work is shown)
   
• Verify the file properties of the assignment. Determine the date created, author and date last modified to ensure if the original author matches the student.

• Similar wording to another student's work.
   
• Similar mistake(s) to another student's work.
   
• A similar main idea and supporting evidence to another student's work.
   
• In calculations, no or few processes are used, but the answer is correct (no elaborate work is shown).
   
• References to previous years' lab assignments.