St. Edward’s University establishes a culture of academic integrity in keeping with its Holy Cross mission and values through its Academic Integrity Policy (see the policy in the current Bulletin).  In online courses and programs, instructional design and pedagogical practices work to remove opportunities and incentives for cheating, plagiarism, and other violations of academic integrity. Below is a roundup of strategies that promote academic integrity.

• Build an “academic community of integrity” in the classroom.
  • Instructors should build a community of trust in online and blended courses through frequent interaction, such as weekly video meetings and online discussions.
• Include frequent low-stakes assignments or assessments to gain insight into a student’s ability and progress, as well as familiarity with a student’s writing style and other work to facilitate plagiarism detection.
• Eliminate high stakes assignments or exams to reduce the exigency that causes many students to cheat.
  • Break large projects into smaller tasks, which also encourages task planning and time management.
  • Avoid creating lengthy exams by instead breaking them into a series of smaller tests or quizzes.
• Take steps to minimize test anxiety which can lead to cheating.
  • Give students frequent and timely feedback.
  • Offer non-graded practice exams to help students self-assess and prepare.
  • Give clear instructions on time limits.
  • Consider offering open book exams.
  • Consider letting students retake assessments multiple times and provide automated feedback for incorrect answers to promote learning.
• Take steps to minimize opportunities for cheating.
  • Create unique versions of assessments for each student through the use of
    • Question banks
    • Randomized question order
    • Shuffled answer choices for multiple choice questions.
  • Set time limits for quizzes and exams to reduce opportunities for students to look up the information elsewhere.
  • For more information on setting up quizzes or exams in Canvas, see Creating Quizzes in Canvas.
  • Create unique assignments and assessments to reduce opportunities for students to find the answers elsewhere online. Ask students to apply course concepts to their own work or personal context.
  • Use essay questions graded with a rubric rather than multiple choice or other objective question types.
  • For online discussions, require students to post their response before seeing those of other students.