ENHANCING ASSESSMENT IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES  

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Introduction and context

Plagiarism has become an issue of growing concern across universities in Australia and internationally. One of the primary reasons for the rapid growth in plagiarism as an issue is that students have increasingly ready access to downloadable information from the Internet. At the same time, students' time in class and on campus has tended to decline and they are constantly searching for efficient ways to complete assignments and assessment tasks.

The biological science discipline is not immune from the challenge of plagiarism, particularly in view of the large classes that typify the undergraduate years of study. Practitioners in the biological sciences shared several strategies that they use to enhance their assessment practices by attempting to reduce instances of and opportunities for students to plagiarise. Many felt that they and their colleagues were 'getting better' at reducing plagiarism, but the shared view was that there is much still to be done. Several strategies are identified below, but first it is important to clarify the meaning of plagiarism.

What is plagiarism? *

Plagiarism in higher education can take many forms. Some of the more common forms are listed below, however it should be noted that definitions of plagiarism vary somewhat across the disciplines in accordance with differences in knowledge, authorship conventions and traditions.

• Cheating in an exam either by copying from other students or using unauthorised notes or other aids.
• Submitting, as one's own, an assignment that another person has completed.
• Downloading information, text, computer code, artwork, graphics or other material from the Internet and presenting it as one's own without acknowledgment.
• Quoting or paraphrasing material from a source without acknowledgment.
• Preparing a correctly cited and referenced assignment from individual research and then handing part or all of that work in twice for separate subjects/marks.

There are also forms of plagiarism that relate directly to student participation in groupwork.

• Copying from other members while working in a group.
• Contributing less, little or nothing to a group assignment and then claiming an equal share of the marks. 

* Source: Excerpt from James, R., McInnis, C. & Devlin, M. (2002). Assessing Learning in Australian Universities. 'Minimising plagiarism' (p.2). Available online: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/03/plagMain.html

Responses to the challenges of plagiarism in the biological sciences

Some approaches to reducing plagiarism include:

• Teaching students about the notion of plagiarism early in the first year. At the one university, students are introduced to the idea of 'becoming a scholar' as a way of illustrating the qualitative difference between scholarly work and plagiarised assignments.

• Ensuring that staff and students are adequately trained and fully understand the value of academic integrity. One staff interviewee commented:

We now have websites to do with academic integrity that staff and students are encouraged to go in and do tests on and to make sure that we do understand exactly what the limits are of plagiarism. [academic]

• Requiring students to submit laboratory reports and other assignments electronically so that they can be subjected to plagiarism detection software. At one university, for example, students submit reports on paper to laboratory demonstrators, as well as electronically. If plagiarism is suspected in reports, pairs or groups of students are called in to explain their responses. 'This acts as a deterrent'. [academic] [Example: Thomson].

• Using experienced markers who are well trained and assess batches of assignments. This increases the likelihood of identifying instances of plagiarism. For instance, some trained sessional markers 'mark a whole lab of 60 students using a marking scheme'. [academic] [Example: Hancock 2].

• Changing the assignment topics each year, particularly in first year units [Example: Fairweather 1]. Craft assessment items with care so as not to encourage plagiarism [Example: Sanderson].

Some assessment tasks invite plagiarism, they are so repetitive and boring. When assessments invite new ideas and critical thinking, plagiarism does not arise. [academic]

• In designing multiple choice items, using the same questions, but with a different order of response options. This means that students cannot pass on the 'right answers' (i.e., 1 e; 2 b; 3 a etc.) to their peers, particularly if the test is being taken in multiple sittings [see also: Tests and quizzes]. One university staff member commented:

We've got four versions of the exam paper. These have the same questions in the same order, but within each multiple choice item, the options a to e are just rotated within that. So when you're designing it, you've got to be careful of the 'all of the above' or 'none of the above' options. [academic]

• Many universities now require students to sign a cover sheet to declare that they have not plagiarised.

How to enhance what we are doing to address plagiarism

Devlin (2002 in James et al., pp. 8-11) proposes thirty-six strategies to minimise plagiarism. These strategies can be summarised into a three-point plan:

• Make expectations clear to students
• Design assessment to minimise opportunities for plagiarism
• Visibly monitor, detect and respond to incidences of plagiarism

In the biological sciences, these principles are in evidence in many ways across Australian universities.

Make expectations clear to students

Some universities have developed a 'draft culture' that enables the teacher to quickly identify obvious examples of plagiarism in a non-assessed draft assignment, before it is formally submitted. This process serves as a valuable learning experience, particularly for those students who learn best by seeing examples of plagiarism and how best to avoid it. It provides an opportunity to make expectations clear in a relatively low-stakes context, before students face the formal assessment process: It's basically a culture of trying to get drafts from students as early as possible because quite often there's a whole lot of little things that can be picked up really quickly. [academic]. [Examples: Mulder1; Taylor 2; West] [see also: Providing feedback]

Design assessment to minimise opportunities for plagiarism

At one university, staff teaching about the functional ecology of marine organisms told us of how they require students to select scientific papers, synthesise the main message and present their viewpoints. These staff ensure that students base their assignments on only the most recent articles (i.e. those published in the last two years). In this way, student learning is enhanced through assessment for students are learning from the latest research in the field. At the same time, the possibility of plagiarising the work of peers from previous years is significantly reduced, if not eliminated. [Examples: Abbott; Fairweather 3; Sanderson; Vanniasinkam].

Visibly monitor, detect and respond to incidences of plagiarism

At one university, 1100 students in the large first year biology class had to complete a mid-semester test online. Because of the large student numbers, computer facilities outside the faculty had to be used. While staff tried to limit the IP numbers on the machines on which the test could be assessed, access from one area was activated earlier than in other test sites. Students found out the URL and downloaded the test prior to the test date. 'Now we can easily eliminate the problem in the future...We've learnt something from that... And it's raised our awareness to just how careful you've go to be [when administering tests online]'. [academic]

See also Minimising plagiarism in Assessing learning in Australian Universities.

To reference material from this site, please use:

Harris, K-L., Krause, K., Gleeson, D., Peat, M., Taylor, C. & Garnett, R. (2007). Enhancing Assessment in the Biological Sciences: Ideas and resources for university educators. Available at: www.bioassess.edu.au