CRADLE 2020 publications round-up – Part 2: Academic integrity / Learning design

8 December 2020

As 2020 draws to a close, we asked the CRADLE team to look over their impressive list of publications for the year and pick some highlights for a special four-part publication round-up. Today – if you’re looking for new perspectives or some inspiration around academic integrity or learning design, read on! And if you want more great holiday reads, why not check out our full 2020 publications round-up?

Part 1: Assessment / Evaluative judgement
Part 3: Work-integrated learning / Research practice
Part 4: Feedback / Feedback literacy

Academic integrity

Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World: Preventing E-Cheating and Supporting Academic Integrity in Higher Education
P. Dawson (2020) Routledge: London.
This book introduces the concept of assessment security, which is the hardening of assessment against attempts to cheat. It argues that while assessment security is in tension with positive academic integrity, the two concepts need to coexist. Drawing on disciplines as diverse as cybersecurity, online gambling and artificial intelligence, the book provides proactive, principles-based approaches to addressing cheating in online learning.

Students cheat more often from those known to them: situation matters more than the individual
R. Awdry^‡ and B. Ives (2020) Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
Contract cheating has long been a concern in higher education, but informal outsourcing – where students outsource to people known to them, rather than providers such as essay mills – has rarely been researched. Drawing from a large international survey of students, this paper explores self-reported instances of informal outsourcing and finds that situational factors, such as knowledge of other students cheating, play a key role in why students outsource.

‘Mess, stress and trauma’: students’ experiences of formal contract cheating processes
P. Pitt, K. Dullaghan and W. Sutherland-Smith* (2020) Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
There’s a lot of debate about how to deal with cheating at the moment, but one voice is rarely heard: students who face allegations of cheating. This study, a collaboration between the Deakin University Student Association and CRADLE, finds students experience academic integrity proceedings as more legalistic than learning-focused.

Learning design

How a centralised approach to learning design influences students: a mixed methods study
M. Bearman, S. Lambert* and M. O’Donnell (2020) Higher Education Research & Development.
In the Degrees@FutureLearn project, Deakin took a centralised approach to learning design. Studying this revealed some valuable insights about platforms, designs and how to balance one-size-fits-all with student needs.

* CRADLE Honorary Appointment
^‡ CRADLE Doctoral Student

Feature image: Alfons Morales on Unsplash