Among the many challenges faced by universities in the context of COVID-19 is the problem of invigilated exams. Every semester university students have historically gathered en masse, seated in large halls in tight rows (in contravention of social distancing) to sit for examinations. But this year, universities have had to make quick, pragmatic decisions about whether to defer their examination periods, conduct exams online, or replace exams with alternative assessments. Understandably, such disruption to exams coupled with an increase in online delivery has sparked renewed anxiety about contract cheating (for example see advice from White, 2020 and Dawson, Sutherland-Smith & Dullaghan 2020). Now more than ever, universities need to leverage the research on academic integrity in designing responses to COVID-19. Evidence indicates that attempts to recreate the perceived security of exams in this disrupted environment adopt too narrow a view, and instead holistic approaches are needed that balance prevention, education and detection. This webinar outlines the evidence-based factors that are likely to be salient in academic integrity breaches during COVID-19, and provides a case study of how ECU has responded. This includes whole-of-unit approaches to verifying student identity, and highly scaffolded, multi-component assessments that may include the use of Cadmus. For ECU, equity has also been a critical lens for ensuring that assessment approaches address not only academic integrity, but also digital inequality at a time when ‘going online’ has been unproblematically assumed.

A recording of the webinar is available at: https://ecu.ap.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=899b4f75-8aa3-4605-9468-abd7004b2186

To download the PowerPoint slides CLICK HERE.

Bio Professor Rowena Harper
Professor Rowena Harper is Director of the Centre for Learning and Teaching at Edith Cowan University. Her team coordinates the University’s Academic Integrity process, and she oversees the areas of Teaching Quality, Learning Support and Learning Technologies. With Tracey Bretag (UniSA), she co-led the OLT Strategic Priority Commissioned Project Contract Cheating and Assessment Design: Exploring the Connection.

Bio - Dr Andrew Kelly
Dr Andrew Kelly is the Manager for Learning Support at Edith Cowan University. In this role, his portfolio responsibilities include academic integrity, learning advisers, English language assessment, and peer to peer academic support programs. He has published in a range of disciplines including tertiary teaching and learning, history and international politics. He also currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of University of Teaching and Learning Practice.

Bio - Herk Kailis
Herk Kailis (MEng) is the founder and CEO of Cadmus. Cadmus is an educational technology company, that was originally developed in conjunction with the University of Melbourne to address critical assessment related issues. It is an assessment platform that can be configured to solve initiatives from academic integrity, to student success, and student experience. Cadmus partners with a number of international and Australian universities, and collaborates on research around assessment related learning.