Academic Honesty

  • Students are clear on academic honesty expectations early in the course and for each assessment.

  • Course assessments are kept current and limit the possibility of academic integrity infractions.

  • Timely feedback and discussion opportunities are provided throughout the term to create and maintain a strong sense of class community.

  • Course deliverables are manageable and align with average weekly workload expectations.

Tips & Considerations

  • With your Learning Outcomes in mind, consider alternative formats and tools available when designing assessments.
  • Set aside time to design, build, test, and release new assessments.
    • Use the Canvas ‘Student View’ feature to view course items as your students would.
  • Understand WHY and HOW students may commit an infraction:

WHY?

  • Time / Grade pressure
  • Easy access to unauthorized resources
  • Lack of academic honesty reinforcement
  • Complicated or confusing instructions
  • Too many deliverables at once
  • Unmanageable expectations
  • Simply unaware of academic policies

HOW?

  • Plagiarism (individual & group)
  • Unauthorized Tools or Resources (accessing internet solutions or previous assessments through “study aid” websites)
  • Aiding and Abetting / Unauthorized Collaboration
  • Avoid / Alter assignments from previous terms & textbook Q/As easily found online
    • Previous Q/As may be easily found online. If you can find them, so can others.
    • Consider reviewing older assessments as an opportunity to help prepare students.
    • Revision Example: Reword a multiple choice question for a different response.
  • Manageable Assessments & Weekly Workloads
    • Design assessments to prevent academic infractions vs. assuming they will occur.
    • Scaffold large assignments and give timely feedback. Ex: Require drafts or iterations vs. everything at once.
    • Coordinate deliverables and time expectations across courses where able.
  • Mention use of Turnitin as a deterrent and to check for plagiarism
  • Highlight academic honesty expectations throughout the course: 
    • In the course syllabus.
    • Discuss during class time.
    • Announcement in Canvas prior to assignments.
    • Require citations and a bibliography.
  • Require students to sign an Academic Honour Statement early in the course.
    • May be included as a standalone Quiz or Assignment, or embedded within assessment instructions.
    • See ‘Academic Honour Statement’ section below for a downloadable example and more details.

Additional Suggestions

(Select to expand and review the following sections)

The following file download is intended for recitation by the instructor at the outset of the course. It may optionally be included as a Word / PDF file within a Canvas ‘assignment’ (worth 0% of final grade) for students to download, sign, and upload to complete.

File Download: Sample Honour Statement for Student Signature
(Note: If uploaded to Canvas, first update the course code, title, and term.)

Sample Honour Statement Text Includes:

  • Course code, title, and term. (Update as needed)
  • A link to Schulich’s Academic Honesty Policy.
  • A promise to understand and uphold the policy.
  • A promise to complete online assessments individually and without help from others.
  • Acknowledgment of potential disciplinary action for committing any form of academic dishonesty.
  • Signed student name, number, and date.

The following text exemplifies language that can be included in the ‘description’ field of Canvas assignments, quizzes, exams and / or embedded in the instructions page of an assessment file to reinforce academic integrity expectations.

Your submitted Assignment will be subject to automatic review via Turnitin, which will identify instances of plagiarism and any unusual similarities among student responses for further investigation.

By completing and submitting this Assignment on Canvas, you are expressly agreeing to the following:
Academic Integrity – Student Honour Statement

“As a member of this class and of York University, I commit myself to the values and practices set forth in the Policies of Academic Honesty of both the Schulich School of Business and York University. I understand that I have a responsibility to maintain these values and, in order to do so, I will not engage in any form of cheating or other breach of academic honesty as defined by the Policies of Academic Honesty at the Schulich School of Business and York University.

More specifically, I promise to complete any remote online assessment in this course individually and without help from others (including former or current students enrolled in this course, outside tutors, or any other third party). I hereby expressly acknowledge and agree that engaging the help of others, including collaborating to answer questions together, is not permitted and constitutes academic dishonesty (i.e., cheating).

I also hereby expressly acknowledge and understand that, if I commit any form of academic dishonesty as described above, I may be subject to disciplinary action under York University policy which may result in serious adverse academic consequences for me.”

Below are some suggestions to enhance Academic Integrity in both quantitative and qualitative questions.

Quantitative Questions (specific answers / calculation-oriented):

  • Closed-Book Timed Exams: Reduce completion times for relevant questions to preclude access to supplementary resources.
  • Explain Your Reasoning: Request commentary on ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ to use certain calculations, alongside final answer.
  • Work Backwards: Require students to demonstrate their understanding by reverse-engineering a problem.
    • Ex: ‘Here is the final answer. How did we get there?’ or ‘How is this variable used to achieve outcome “X”?’
  • Randomize: Include slight variations in data sets, question sequences, and exam facts requiring similar calculations to produce different, but correct, results.
  • Formative ‘Low Stakes’ Practice Problems: Provide student opportunities to complete practice problems / activities for low percentage marks in preparation for midterm and final assessments (perhaps, as asynchronous activity to augment participation marks).
  • Turnitin: Use to compare calculations, code, comments, layouts, etc.

Qualitative Questions

  • Use ‘open-ended’ questions (i.e., how? when? where? why?) to solicit individual expression of ideas that relate to practical applications of terminology and/or significance of concepts pertaining to your course learning objectives.
    • Ex: “Explain how the concept of ‘duty of care’ can impose liability on management of a corporation and provide an example of how potential liability of this type has arisen in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
  • Present brief fact scenarios with given outcomes, and ask students to work backward to identify key concepts and explain why outcomes occurred.
  • Consider creating external research questions framed in context of current societal and/or business-oriented events that apply course learnings, but are not covered directly in course resource materials.
  • Use Turnitin as a deterrent, specifying the ability to identify plagiarism & unusual similarities in text of student responses.

Open Book Assessments

  • Encourage students to select individual topics of interest.
  • Require application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation or creation.

Presentations & Oral Exams

  • Often clear when student knows their content or not.

Scaffolding Assignments

  • Submit early drafts for feedback and practice.
  • Students start thinking earlier and build out pieces of an assignment.
  • Unique work & less time pressure.

Case Studies

  • Consider solutions from different roles / stakeholders to the same challenge.
  • Randomly assign students to different cases or initial data.

Discussion Boards

  • If graded, encourage more points for thoughtful answers with analysis / explanation / interpretation.
  • Option to hide peer responses until student posts their own as well.

Group Work & Peer Assessment

  • Encourage working together if applicable and in support of LOs

Research Papers

  • Encourage students to select individual topics of personal interest.
  • Require citations and a bibliography.

Canvas Quizzes

  • Shuffle questions and pre determined answers.
  • Randomly display questions from question banks.

Learn More