FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I address academic integrity for online exams?

This set of guiding questions is designed to help you think through how you want to handle academic integrity for your course assessments.

Important Note: If you make changes to your syllabus, including academic integrity guidelines, Senate Policy states that changes to the syllabus must be given to students in written form (electronic or paper). Updating your syllabus in Canvas and sending your students a message in Canvas to notify them of the changes is one way to meet expectations of Senate Policy.

Guiding questions

Should you change your academic integrity plan because testing is remote?

Because students aren’t being monitored, more of them may be tempted to violate academic integrity. You may want to consider changes to “level the playing field” so that students who follow your academic integrity policy don’t suffer because others don’t follow it. Some instructors have decided to allow access to course notes and books. Others have decided not to make any changes.

If you make changes like allowing access to books, notes, or other resources, please be sure that all students have the same level of access because some students may not have notes from earlier in the semester. Also, if you make such changes, some students may think they don’t need to prepare as much for an exam. So, it is important to reinforce the need to study as if the exam was taking place under usual conditions; here is an example for an open book/open notes exam:

Although you will have access to your notes and textbook for this exam, please do not change how you prepare for it. If you spend lots of time looking through your notes and textbook, you are likely to run out of time to complete the exam. So please prepare for this exam as if you won’t have access to your notes or textbook.

Will you use an academic integrity pledge on the exam?

Academic Integrity Pledges (two examples provided below) have been shown to reduce transgressions.¹ A Pledge could be incorporated into your academic integrity guidelines that students must review and sign before an exam.

Will you include an affirmational statement on your exams, encouraging students to adhere to the Penn State Values or a code of ethics for their profession?

Tricia Bertram Gallant, an internationally recognized expert in academic integrity, recommends balancing “punitive” messaging about academic integrity with affirmational statements. Such statements can refer to codes of ethics. Here are two example statements:

As you take this exam, please remember that the ASME code of ethics calls on all of us as engineers to be honest and compete fairly with others.

As you take this exam, please remember these statements from the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics: “Avoid deceptive acts and conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully.”

How will you address possible issues like students communicating during the exam or uploading problems and answers to sites like Chegg?

No easy answers here. Students are more likely to be tempted to communicate and access online resources because they are not being monitored. You could allow communication during the exam but require students to list those who they communicate with, and you could allow access to the web requiring that they list what sites they visited. Regardless of what you decide to do, it is important to state your expectations on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable; here is an example statement on use of online resources:

You are permitted to access online resources during the exam. However, you may not post any part of the exam or solution nor copy a solution from any online source. If you copy a solution, I will consider it a violation of academic integrity because you are representing someone else’s work as your own. You must list all online sources that you used on your exam.

How might you use Canvas features to promote academic integrity?

Canvas has a number of exam formats and settings that can make it harder for students to violate academic integrity. This includes time limits for each exam, randomizing exam questions and/or answers, pulling a set number of questions from a question bank, and displaying only one question at a time. The Office for Digital Learning can help you design your exam in Canvas.

Will you ask students to report, anonymously after the exam, that they are aware that some students violated AI guidelines?

This could be done as an anonymous survey in Canvas or through Qualtrics. We found no research in the literature to quote here, but such reporting can reinforce to students your commitment to upholding integrity and may encourage a few of them to report potential violations.

Implementing Your Plan

After you finalize your approach to academic integrity for remote testing, we strongly encourage you to write up your new plan and create a quiz on Canvas that asks students to read your revised academic integrity plan and to acknowledge that they have reviewed and will abide by it. Having students complete this quiz will help ensure that they have reviewed the new policies and that you have a record that they have seen the new policy. See sample quizzes below, as well as instructions for how to import these quizzes into your course.

In addition, it is a good idea to remind students explicitly at the beginning and/or end of each assignment how you expect the assignment to be completed.

Questions?

• If you have specific questions about Academic Integrity and how cases are handled in the College, please contact the Office for Academic Integrity.
• If you need assistance formatting your exams in Canvas or the Academic Integrity quiz, please contact the Office for Digital Learning.

Sample Academic Integrity Pledges

Write out and Sign (Gary Gray, Engineering Science and Mechanics)

You must pledge that you are adhering to Penn State’s Code of Conduct when you take the exam.To do so, write out the following statement, sign it, and include it with your exam.“I pledge that I am adhering to Penn State’s Code of Conduct when taking this exam. This means I will not communicate with anyone during the exam, I will use only the allowed materials, I will only access the internet to download the exam, view the ebook and to upload the exam, and I will not cheat in any way.“

Respond in Canvas (Laura Pauley, Mechanical Engineering)

Question 1 – As stated in the Academic Integrity Policy on the course syllabus,Any sharing of exam solutions or answer keys via personal communication or websites other than those communications or web-based applications used as part of the course is not allowed. Copying from other students, copying from answer keys or solution sets or having tutors complete assignments for students is unacceptable. All of these are examples of academic dishonesty. Instructors regularly monitor the web for the inappropriate posting of instructional materials.

Please answer the following academic integrity promise: I will not share the content of this exam with other students via personal communications or posting for others to view.

Question 2 – As stated in the Academic Integrity Policy on the course syllabus,It is expected that any work submitted is your own. Students are expected to work on exams on their own. All exam answers must be your own, and you must not provide any assistance to other students, nor accept assistance from others during exams.

Please answer the following academic integrity promise: I have not received information about exam problems or solutions from others.

Import an Academic Integrity Quiz to Your Canvas Course

We have created each of these quizzes in Canvas so that you can import them directly into your course:

1. Log into Canvas, and select the Commons icon in the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Within Commons, enter Academic Integrity Resources at Penn State in the search field.

¹Bryan, C.J., Adams, G.S., & Monin, B. (2012, November 5). When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater: Implicating the Self Prevents Unethical Behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 142 (4), 1001-1005.