Teaching Excellence Handbook

It is an unfortunate fact that some students will engage in cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic misconduct. Each instructor must be prepared to deal with those occasions.

Plagiarism

In grading term papers or other written assignments, instructors will need to be on guard against plagiarism. Since students often claim that they do not understand this form of academic dishonesty, instructors must be prepared to explain what plagiarism is and what punishment is appropriate when it is detected.

The Student Standards of Academic Integrity policy states that the term “plagiarism”

includes, but is not limited to

• The knowing or negligent use by paraphrase or direct quotation of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgement or citation and

• The knowing or negligent use of materials prepared by another person or by an agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.

It is also important that instructors ensure that students know the consequences of academic dishonesty from the beginning of the course. The actual consequence for plagiarism will likely depend on departmental policy, the course syllabus, and the gravity of the offense. In explaining the consequences, instructors should simply repeat and interpret the policy given in the course syllabus.

When an instructor suspects plagiarism, the student should be confronted in private and given an opportunity to dispute the allegations. The instructor of record should discuss the matter with the student, make a judgment as to whether the student is responsible for plagiarism, and assess penalties if convinced that the student is responsible. TAs should turn over cases of suspected plagiarism to the supervising instructor.

Further information on student standards of academic integrity academic dishonesty and integrity can be found on the Office for Faculty Success website (facultysuccess.unt.edu/academic-integrity). For additional information, refer to UNT Policy 06.003.

Preventing Academic Dishonesty

The best way to deal with academic dishonesty is to prevent it. The following are good practices:

• Be sure your syllabus addresses academic misconduct and the possible penaltie you will impose (failure of an assignment, failure of the course, referral to the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities).
• Be clear about what you consider to be academic misconduct. Specify which sources students may and may not use in completing assignments and papers. Refer students to the website for the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities (deanofstudents.unt.edu/conduct) for information about plagiarism and proper citations.
• Reduce the pressure. Provide a number of opportunities for students to demonstrate achievement of course goals, rather than relying upon a single examination.
• If you or your department has rules about the use of calculators or during tests (e.g., calculators must be non-programmable), you should make this clear in advance of the test.
• Make reasonable demands and write a reasonable test. Some academic dishonesty is simply the result of frustration and desperation arising from assignments too long to be covered adequately or tests requiring memorization of trivial details.
• Show that you are concerned about academic dishonesty. Move around the room during the test. Avoid a tense atmosphere but convey a sense of alert helpfulness while strolling down the aisles or watching for questions.
• Ask students to raise their hands if they have questions so that they don’t have to move around the room.
• Make different versions of a single test to keep students from looking at their neighbor’s test. For example, if you are administering a multiple-choice test, you can randomize the question order or the answer order (or both). Print one version of the exam on a different colored paper (blue, pink, etc.) or put a notation on the exam itself. Alternate the versions of the exam. If you do this, make sure that you use the proper key for each exam you will be scoring.
• Restrict the use of cell phones in class during testing. Prohibit students from wearing headphones or hats with brims during exams.
• Be sure students know that they cannot leave the room during the test (they need to attend to personal needs before the exam period begins).
• Consider a policy of not handing out blank exams after the first completed test is turned in.
• Create novel paper assignments to reduce the ability of students to find pre-written essays that they can adopt wholesale. Require them to utilize a specific set of sources (in addition to others) to make it more difficult to purchase or steal an essay from an online source.
• Notify students in advance that you will be searching for plagiarism using Turnitin.com or a similar plagiarism detection program; if students know they are likely to get caught, they are less likely to cheat.
• Instructors should discuss expectations for student conduct and appropriate responses to misconduct with TAs before a situation arises. This will ensure that issues are handled properly and consistently.

Handling Academic Dishonesty

No matter how many steps are taken to prevent academic dishonesty, it may still occur. When an instructor suspects academic dishonesty, he or she should do the following:

• Follow department and university procedures.
• Meet privately with the student to give the student an opportunity to refute your allegations.
• If the student admits to wrong-doing, assess your grade penalty and inform the student of that penalty and of the fact that you will be referring the matter to the Office of Academic Integrity. Inform the student of the appeal process.
• Follow up the meeting with a written summary of what transpired, including the penalty you plan to assess. Make sure you provide this information to the student, your department chair, and Office of Academic Integrity.
• Advice about how to proceed along with the forms to use in reporting incidents to the Office of Academic Integrity are located at facultysuccess.unt.edu/academic-integrity
• If you have time to think about the suspected academic dishonesty, consult an experienced faculty member before taking any action.
• Know in advance how to handle a student looking on another’s paper during a test.

Will you take the exam away from the student, ask the student to move to another seat, or take some other action?

• Have a written policy in your syllabus that prescribes what will happen if academic dishonesty is discovered. Be sure your policy conforms to departmental or university rules.
• Follow your own written policy; you need to be fair and consistent in your enforcement of your own rules.
• Where appropriate, require students to use pen rather than pencil to complete a test. Students may correct their answers after grading in an attempt to get more points on exams. If you are using a computer-graded answer sheet that must be completed in pencil, make a copy of all answer sheets before you hand them back. This will allow you to spot student efforts to revise their answers.
• Even when confronting a student about misconduct, it is important to be respectful. Be calm, professional, and matter-of-fact. Explain that you understand that students make mistakes but that you have an obligation to impose rules fairly and consistently. Your own demeanor can defuse a potentially emotional situation and ease the process in the long run.
• Teaching assistants should always consult the instructor of record before approaching a student about academic misconduct.

Fairness

Despite an instructor’s best attempts to keep grading objective, grading often contains an element of subjective judgment. The best way to avoid any appearance of arbitrariness is to spell out the grading policy as clearly as possible and to have a reasonable number of assignments throughout the semester. The student should know how he or she is doing in the class throughout the semester so that the final grade will not be a surprise.

Graphing Grades

Graphing the distribution of grades provides another means of checking grading fairness. A fair scale reflects the entire range of grades with the bulk of students doing average work. If all of the students fail or if most students make A’s, the evaluative process or course content may need re-evaluation.

Grade Conflicts

Nearly every instructor at one time or another will have to deal with students who are extremely dissatisfied with the grade assigned to their work. It is important to explain to students that the instructor’s role is to evaluate their ability to learn and apply course material to assessments. Make it clear that the assigning of grades is not a judgment of them as human beings and that the same standards apply to everyone in the class.

When graded work is returned to students, the instructor should explain the procedure for appealing a grade and should treat any such complaints with an open mind.

Emotional Students

Grade disputes are sometimes charged with emotion. In a few cases, students may become distraught and begin to cry when they come to discuss their grades. It is important to explain that the grade assigned their work, though perhaps lower than they hoped for, should in no way be interpreted as a sign that they are incapable of learning. The instructor should try to convince such students to strive for improvement and reassure them that they are intelligent and capable.

Confrontational Students

In a few cases, students may be confrontational in grade disputes. Students who approach an instructor with grade disputes but who are unwilling to accept explanation of their grades should be advised of their right to appeal grades. Where appropriate, instructors of such students may also want to refer to the discussion regarding disruptive students found in Chapter 5.

Forms of Evidence to Help Assess Student Performance

Assessment methods fall broadly within two categories: direct and indirect (Maki P.L., 2004. Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution, Sterling, VA: Stylus)).

Direct. Assessment methods can prompt students to show or model their learning or produce work products so that faculty or other observers can ascertain how well the students’ work fit into the larger class or program outcomes. These may include (but are not limited to):

• Course-embedded assessments (assignments, lab reports, etc.)
• Performances (documented)
• Rubrics
• Portfolios or creations (catalogued or captured digital)
• Results of research or exploration
• Locally or commercially developed tests
• Interactions within groups (problem solving or demonstrating team work)
• Responses to questions and/or prompts

Indirect. Assessment methods that collect student opinions or perceptions of their learning and the educational environment where this learning takes place can also show faculty how the students are learning. These may include (but are not limited to):

• Surveys and questionnaires
• Student satisfaction surveys
• Alumni and employer surveys
• Exit interviews or focus groups
• Transcript analysis

The Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness and the Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment and Redesign (CLEAR) can also provide additional support and consultation on assessment strategies and forms of evidence.

Interpreting and Sharing Assessment Results

When thinking about how to interpret assessment results, an instructor should remember that this process works best when applying data to the learning outcomes they are supposed to measure, drawing inferences and conclusions, and evaluating the results. The following strategies may help when interpreting assessment results:

• Ask yourself why the assessment was conducted in the first place and what learning outcomes you wanted to assess.
• If you already established a benchmark or criterion for success, summarize results in a way that reflects that goal. For example, if the criterion for success is that at least 85% of students should reach a certain performance level, summarize your findings as the percentage of students reaching the 85% threshold/level.
• Scan the results for elements that jump off the page—significant successes or failures relevant to the given learning outcome. Try to identify patterns within these sub-groups and consider impacts on your future practice.
• Assessment works best when it can improve future student experiences at UNT.

Consider sharing assessment results with faculty members within your program. Do you see trends that cut across individual courses? How might these trends inform curriculum decisions? How could you and your colleagues use your data to close the loops between assessment and action?

• Depending on your assessment needs, additional audiences could be involved (e.g., students within the department, alumni, etc.)
• Keep a record of assessment results. Such a record will be useful for doing longitudinal studies of assessment projects, which can reveal trends and patterns in student learning. SACS wants to see evidence of how individual programs utilize assessment to make data-based decisions and how these assessment efforts are ongoing and consistent across time.
• Consider working with your department chair and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness to ensure assessment work is properly captured in campus-wide accrediting systems.