AHA! Academic Honesty Assistance

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AHA!Academic Honesty Assistance

• Lisa Callagher (AUBS Tamaki Division)
• Peter Smith (MER)
• Lynne Mitchell (BBIM Librarian)

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Agenda for todays presentation

• What is AHA!
• Why does UoA need an academic honesty tutorial?
• How is AHA! designed, delivered and assessed?
• Results from the pilot study
• Where should AHA! go?

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AHA!

• Interactive self-paced tutorials and on-line
  assessments
• Its purpose
• To introduce students to the role of university
• To induct students into UoAs academic
  environment, including our implicit expectations,
  policies, processes and practices
• To provide practical research, noting-taking and
  referencing skills
• To encourage academic honesty and reduce
  plagiarism

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Academic honesty as a higher education issue

• Plagiarism is a significant issue in higher
  education (Hauptman, 2002., Campbell, Owens Swift
  and Denton, 2000)
• A number of factors are attributed to its
  increase
• Digital sources, electronic paper mills and the
  Internet (Born, 2003., Park, 2003)
• Changing student demographic and economic reasons
  for participating in higher education (McCabe et
  al, 1992-1999)

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Academic honesty at UoA

• Recent research (Mills, in progress) from UABS
  reports students awareness of and participation
  in plagiarism
• Existing procedures to guard against cheating and
  plagiarism ( Guidelines Conduct of Coursework)
  http//www2.auckland.ac.nz/teachingandlearning/Doc
  uments/Coursework20Conduct20Guidelines.pdf
• Concerned with action not intent of the action
• Policy that outlines process after the event

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Addressing plagiarism through learning and
teaching

• Academic honesty is socially constructed
  knowledge (Payne and Nantz,1994)
• Students must experience institutional values in
  order to understand why they are different from
  other institutional and social settings
  (Hauptman, 2002)

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Design principles

• Students engage themselves in the context and
  values that underpin academic honesty at UoA
• Students learn in their own time, pace and space
• Students transfer their understanding of academic
  honesty directly into other aspects of their
  academic life
• This is achieved in a resource (people, time, )
  sustainable model

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AHA! Delivering these principles

• Core modules
• The Academic Environment
• Academic Honesty
• University of Auckland Policy
• Including study strategies to avoid plagiarism
• Additional module
• APA referencing style (currently available)
• Accessed from Cecil, available 24/7
• Lo-speed option available
• Interactive with pop ups, true/false questions,
  interviews, student-oriented ethical scenarios

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AHA! Assessment

• Formative assessment embedded in modules
• True/false questions
• To go.. for more information
• Ethical questions to ponder
• Summative assessment
• Multi-choice quizzes at end of each module

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Results of pilot study in MGMT.101

• Traditionally referencing was taught in a one
  hour tutorial and supported by dept document on
  referencing
• This semester 982 stage I students were required
  to complete 31 modules and gain at least 80 in
  each quiz prior to submitting a 20 essay

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Qualitative evidence

• Number of students failing the assignment
  because of plagiarism (i.e. getting zero)
• Without AHA 8.5
• With AHA 5.5
• Thats a difference of about 30 people
• Quality of referencing and citation
• Much improved, significantly better

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Quantitative evidence Intra-Course
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To put it another way
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Quantitative evidence Inter-Course
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Student perceptions

• It should be made compulsory in every courses at
  the University of Auckland.
• make my reference more correct and fast
• I found it very helpful for preparing reference
  list for essay writing.

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Where should AHA! go?

• Our Vision
• AHA! is actively used by all courses within the
  University of Auckland
• Currently negotiating with library services to
  take over marketing and management of AHA!
• Investment in product likely to be demand-driven
• Discipline staff needed to adapt AHA! and
  implement in classes