There are some matters that are referred currently for a formal process that do not truly rise to the level of an academic standards violation. If you have questions, please contact the Academic Standards Office. Below are some tips on how to handle these issues.
How to engage in Classroom Guidance
The faculty member should request a meeting with the student to discuss the issue. During this meeting faculty can:
- Discuss the referred element with the student and determine next steps for assignment completion.
- Describe what you observed in the student’s work that raises concerns and ask the student to explain what they were trying to do
- Discuss expectations for appropriate academic work in this context
- Explain the next steps and consequences with the student. Explain whether students will have an opportunity to remediate their work, describe the grade consequences with and without that potential remediation, and give clear deadlines for any further revisions.
- Provide Campus Resources to the student
- For writing issues involving poor paraphrasing or improper citation, a referral to the Writing Center with the document would be most appropriate
- For issues that fall under a failure to follow syllabus instructions that do not rise to the level of a formal referral (presence of a phone with no evidence of use in an assignment/exam for example), an educational module through the Office of Academic Integrity would be most appropriate
- For issues that appear to be the result of poor study/time management skills, a referral to Learning Services or a library workshop would be most appropriate.
A Thriving Classroom
Strategies to Prevent Academic Misconduct
Mason is a member of the International Center for Academic Integrity, which hosts regional and international conferences on an ongoing basis. For more information, visit their site.
Faculty members looking to take a more proactive approach to addressing Academic Misconduct can incorporate the Honor Code Module created by the Academic Standards Office into their teaching. We can provide an embedded module including an assessment to add to the LMS directly. If you would like to receive this module with instructions on how to embed it in your course (which will send results directly to the grade center under the student’s name), email us at asos@gmu.edu.
General Strategies
- At the beginning of each semester and throughout the course, clearly communicate with students the grade consequences associated with violating the Honor Code. Be familiar with ASO policies and process regarding how to handle academic dishonesty.
- Make sure your syllabus spells out expectations and hold yourself and your students accountable to them. See the “Creating a Successful Syllabus” section of our website for more information.
- Consider quizzing students on academic standards and other course policies during your first or second class.
- You can give this quiz whether the course is an online or in-person course.
- Consider adding the honor statement on all work submissions and ask students to sign this prior to submitting each assignment.
- Be aware of and monitor “study sites” for your materials, exams, and assignments and issue a takedown notice if you find them.
- Examples of some “study sites” include:
- For students who are sick (or other emergency) for exams–consider requiring a doctor’s note and use alternate assessments or a different type of assessment that students perceive as being harder, even if it’s not (essay, etc.).
- Tell the students about this practice in the course contract or syllabus.
- Get to know your students. When students feel they are invisible in the classroom and think their instructors do not know them, they may be tempted to cheat or plagiarize.
- It is important for faculty to familiarize themselves with the unique issues related to cultural differences and avoid misunderstanding or stereotyping students from different backgrounds.
- One effective step for preventing academic dishonesty is for faculty to model academic integrity in all situations.
- Faculty should include proper citations and acknowledgments in all their instructional and research materials and follow copyright, fair use and intellectual property guidelines.
- Often, students participate in academic misconduct because they are doing poorly in the class, explain to them that you are willing and available to discuss academic concerns with them.
- Regularly encourage students to go to office hours or to schedule a time to meet with you.
- Encourage students to reach out to you if they suspect other students are engaging in academic misconduct
- Refer students to ASO when necessary and appropriate. Information on how to do so can be found in the “Academic Standards Referral” section of our website.
- By taking a strong stance and reporting suspected violations, students can come to understand that it does not serve them well to engage in cheating.
Strategies for Writing Assignments
- Avoid topics that are too general
- Ask for a tentative bibliography and outline in advance
- Have students complete in-class writing assignments to help establish a student’s voice and writing style
- Vary final project list so that no two similar projects are assigned in back-to-back years
- Randomize project assignments, so friends are not assigned the same projects
- Explain clearly what level of collaboration is acceptable, keeping in mind that students must submit individual reports and are graded individually
- If a student wants to continue work from a previous class, consult with the student and develop clear expectations regarding the assignment.
- To verify the student is expanding on the topic, have the student turn in their old assignment before they start the project to verify the additional work they completed.
- Compare a student’s “voice” on a writing assignment with his/her discussion postings and e-mail messages.
- If the voice is dramatically different, examine the written assignment more closely.
- Use Turnitin or Safeassign to ensure that writing assignments do not contain plagiarism. Be sure your course syllabus states you use this service.
- Students often have trouble relating the abstract definitions of cheating and plagiarism to their own work. Provide concrete examples and specific guidance to help them recognize and avoid cheating and plagiarism.
- Providing examples of students’ work (without names or identifying information) from previous semesters, instructors can demonstrate how those students did or did not properly paraphrase or cite sources.
- It is a good idea to discuss in class good writing strategies, different citation styles, and proper paraphrasing techniques, and provide students a list of online resources on these topics. Listed below are some online resources that students may find useful:
Strategies for Quizzes, Exams, and Homework Assignments
- Consider utilizing rubrics where possible.
- Not only will rubrics save time in grading, but they will also make expectations for all assignments clear for students.
- Utilize test blueprinting to produce fair exam question pools. This also makes it easier to create multiple questions that test the same idea.
- For more information on blueprinting a test, see Penn State’s resource on blueprinting for details.
- Change exams/quizzes each semester or create three or four versions that you rotate throughout the year.
- Students use course material sharing sites such as CourseHero to post information, so changing things up is often the best way to prevent issues.
- Share with students in advance about the methods you are taking to prevent academic misconduct during exams – this information may help deter students from engaging in academic misconduct.
- Give oral and written instructions concerning material allowed or not allowed during the exam at the beginning of the test.
- If using blue books for exams, collect all of them and randomly redistribute them to the class.
- Additionally, be sure to collect all blue books, whether used or not, at the end of the exam.
- Randomize seating order to avoid friends sitting together or have students fill out a seating chart that you can reference if you suspect academic misconduct.
- If a student needs to leave the room, collect their exam materials until they return.
- After the exam, mark the answer sheets in a way where responses cannot be changed and allows you to see if there have been alterations if a student brings up a concern about grading.
- You can also scan a copy of the exam before returning to students.
- Give an alternate version of the exam for students you allow to make up the test.
- Avoid letting students take tests early, if a student needs to make up an exam due to a foreseen personal issue, require them to take the makeup exam after everyone else.
- Rotate homework assignments so that no two similar assignments are used in back-to-back years.
- Use different versions of the assignment for each course section. Create two or three versions of a test but differentiate them with only a small tick or mark prior to copying.
- Students won’t recognize the exams as different, but you will. Further, it will help detect if a student copied an incorrect answer from a nearby classmate.
- Ensure that different versions of an exam do not use the same grading scheme.
- For example, if Form A’s key is A-B-B-A-C-D, Form B’s key should be different.
- Have students put books, backpacks, or other items not permitted during exams either under their chairs or in the front of the room.
- Instruct students that materials not permitted for use during exams must be put away so that they are not visible to anyone.
- Distribute blank paper with exams so students can use it for scratch and cover completed work.
- Do not post answers until after all sections have taken the exam.
Strategies for Online Courses
- Use quiz banks and randomize the questions and answers so that students have a more difficult time sharing answers.
- Limit the time during which a student can complete an online assessment to something that is reasonable yet prevents their looking up answers.
- Utilize the reports available in Blackboard or Canvas to analyze suspicious test results. For example, you can easily see the exact time and date when a student took a Blackboard/Canvas-based exam. If you contact Blackboard/Canvas support, you can even see the IP address they had. The IP address designates what computer they were using to access the assessment. If you see two similar test results from the same date/time and from contiguous IP addresses, you might surmise that the two students were sitting next to each other in a computer lab! (Note: IP addresses are in the format of four sets of numbers separated by decimal points, e.g., 128.118.67.43).
Strategies for In Person Courses
- Require that student phones are face down on top of desks so that it is clear if a student picks up his/her phone and looks at it during an assessment.
- Walk around–a lot! Proximity is an easy way to discourage cheating during exams. If you have TAs, each should walk around a “zone” of the lecture hall to monitor the students in all areas of the classroom.
Strategies for Courses that use iClicker or Poll Everywhere
- Emphasize to students your expectations about academic integrity related to the use of clickers or Poll Everywhere.
- Clearly define these expectations in class and in your syllabus.
- Consider using time limits for your questions to reduce the chances that a student has time to use another student’s clicker or contact a friend who is not in class with the question and/or answer.
- Ask a question that can only be answered correctly if the student is in class (what color shirt is a particular TA wearing?).
Recommended Responses to suspected in progress cheating
- Do not stop a student from completing the exam, even if you believe that he/she is cheating.
- Instead, interrupt the misconduct as described below, and identify those involved by setting their exams aside and recording their names.
- If a student is using notes or has notes visible, immediately and discreetly confiscate–but do not discard–the notes. These materials may be important if a student denies cheating so keep them as a record.
- Make a note on the student’s exam indicating when the notes were taken.
- If students are talking, announce that no talking is permitted during exams, quietly ask the students to stop talking, or separate the students.
- If you learn that someone may be taking an exam for another student, quietly approach him/her and ask for identification.
- If the student cannot or will not provide identification, campus police may be called or you may refuse to credit the exam until identification is presented.
- If a student is looking at other’s work, announce to the class that all work is individual, and/or quietly tell the student that eyes must be kept on one’s own paper.
- No grade consequence may be imposed until a student admits misconduct or is found in violation after a hearing. While a disciplinary matter is pending, do not report a final grade to the student. Instead, leave the grade unreported until after the Academic Integrity process has been completed.
Proctoring Exams
As you move your courses to Canvas, HonorLock will automatically be selected as the proctoring tool. If you are still utilizing Blackboard or need assistance with implementing HonorLock, please visit GMU’s Information Technology Services website Honorlock for Instructors
GMU utilizes HonorLock for exam proctoring because of the helpful features including:
- live proctored exams including in-person pop-ins and interventions when necessary
- The “search and destroy” feature that searches the web for your exam content that will provide you with recommendations on which questions you should remove and assist you with removing your course content from unauthorized websites
Please visit the Creating a Successful Syllabus section of the website for syllabus language that may reduce Academic Standards violations while students take proctored exams.