A growing number of students are cheating – clearer instructions are now required

During the spring, when all teaching and examinations were forced to quickly switch to online, there was a significant increase in the number of cheating cases. Between 18 March and 1 August of this year, 99 cases were reported to the University, compared to 16 cases during the same period last year. And in just one month, between 1 August and 1 September, another 13 cases were reported

Unauthorised collaboration during take-home examinations and plagiarism are the most common forms of cheating reported. Quite often, there are multiple students involved in a case, for example if there is suspicion that several students collaborated on an examination. 

Not all of the cases go before the Disciplinary Board. Less serious cases, where a warning may be sufficient, are decided on by the Vice-Chancellor. 

As many as 52 students ended up before the Disciplinary Board during the latter part of the spring. Of these, 27 students were judged to have cheated in such a way that they have been suspended from instruction. During the same period last year, only 13 students were suspended. And many of the cases relate to take-home examinations, which were a result of restrictions imposed in response to the Corona pandemic.

“Instructions about what is and what is not permitted when an on-campus invigilated examination has been converted into a take-home examination are extremely important. The instructions must be as clear as possible, and must reach all of the students taking the examination,” says Mattias Wande, Legal Officer of the Legal Affairs Division and part of the team handling disciplinary matters at the University. 

Inform about technical support

And the instructions have to be adapted to the take-home examination in question, since it may differ from one subject to another. Only teachers and examiners know what applies locally. With some take-home examinations, students have to work together, while with others students must work individually. 

The instructions should also contain information about what the students should do and where they can get support if they are having technical difficulties. This will prevent a situation where the student, out of pure desperation, calls a friend for help.

The employee portal contains tips for how teachers can create a digital examination and formulate questions in a way that makes it more difficult for a student to cheat. 

Work is also underway to create a comprehensive guide for teachers, with tips and advice for creating a digital take-home examination. The guide is expected to be complete in the autumn. 

If a student is found guilty by the Disciplinary Board, the punishment depends on the severity of the cheating and is based on factors such as the number of credits that the examination or assignment is worth and how far the student has progressed in their programme – a student who has a number of semesters under their belt should know what is allowed and is usually judged more stringently. In plagiarism cases, it may depend on how much the student has plagiarised – for example, if it is one sentence or the entire assignment. 

The punishment can range from a warning to suspension lasting up to six months.

“Naturally, the vast majority of students find it stressful to end up in front of the Disciplinary Board,” says Mattias Wande. 

The 27 students who were found guilty of cheating this spring were suspended for between two and eight weeks. Three students chose to appeal the Disciplinary Board’s decision on suspension to the Administrative Court. In all of these cases, the Administrative Court agreed with the Disciplinary Board, which means that the suspension will continue for the period decided by the Board.

What do our directors of studies say?
 

We interviewed Directors of Studies Lisa Freyhult and Johanna Jacobsson about how they instruct their students about what is allowed and not allowed in a take-home examination. Here are some tips!

You can also read Director of Studies Dorothe Spillmann's experience from IMBIM in relation to this spring’s hectic process of managing take-home examinations online – with or without monitoring.
 

Lisa Freyhult, Director of Studies at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. 
“During the teaching sessions, I discussed with the students what is allowed and not allowed in a take-home examination. I also posted this information in the learning management system. The department also contacts all registered students approximately one week before the examination, and sends them links to our information about where the examination is located, and where the examination will be made available. All teachers are asked to post information about the examination in advance.”
“In principle, students are never allowed to collaborate. In cases where it is allowed, this is made clear at the start of the course.”
“If a student experiences technical difficulties during a take-home examination, there is always a contact person (usually the teacher) who, in turn, has access to support from an administrator and central support. The students are not used to take-home examinations. It is therefore important to provide clear instructions. We have had relatively few technical difficulties in connection with take-home examinations, but we have been flexible when they have occurred. I have emphasised to students that they should let us know immediately if they are having technical difficulties, especially if they think it will prevent them from turning in the examination on time.”
“We have had cases of students collaborating even though it was not allowed. In principle, we have no way to control this. But it can sometimes be seen afterwards when looking at the answers given in the examination. I want to be able to trust that the students will follow the rules, and consider it important to have a discussion in the student group about what cheating involves prior to the examination.”
 

Johanna Jacobsson, Director of Studies at the Department of Scandinavian Languages:
“In my role as director of studies, I tell students that ‘They must answer the questions of the take-home examination individually and independently (unless other instructions have been given).’ This is the wording taken from the department’s student guide. When reporting suspicion of attempted deception in connection with an examination, I have also been told by the Disciplinary Board how important it is for what is allowed and not allowed to be stated in writing on the take-home examinations. This is something I have taken on board and have communicated to the teachers. This matter was raised as recently as the department's semester start last week.”
 

Dorothe Spillmann, Director of Studies for Undergraduate Education, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, IMBIM, provides a graphic description of this spring’s experience:
“To understand the entire phenomenon, we must also remember that most examinations involve a hectic process to succeed with logistics and content. Few, if any of us, had planned for take-home examinations and we remained hopeful to the end that it would be possible to use our regular solutions (even if they were few and far between) towards the end of the spring semester. As a result, there were initially really short changeover times to get everything to work: format, location, any change in content, and decisions on what kind of monitoring was required. We also tried to capture lessons learned and apply them on a running basis in order to make improvements from one examination planning session to the next...” 

“Naturally, we had some solutions that were less successful and had some shortcomings. For example: how early could we inform the students to ensure all of the information was included in case something went completely wrong?”

“As a director of studies, I had a lot of contact with most of our teachers, who conducted a large number of regular examinations. Through all of this contact and in my role as director of studies – and through participating invigilating teachers – I have learned about half a dozen obvious cases of ‘cheating’. For one of these cases, we had enough evidence to make a report. In other cases, we did not think we had enough evidence and did not pursue it. There is probably also a number of cases that were not caught.”

Different kinds of take-home examinations
 

“It is also important to realise that a take-home examination is not always a take-home examination. Many use this term to mean different things, but the common denominator was that the examination was taken by the student at home in an environment of their own choosing. There was everything, such as unmonitored homework assignments that the students had to turn in and ‘open book’ examinations that required well-reasoned questions to challenge the students’ way of thinking since they could use any reference to find the answer.” 

“Other take-home examinations required different forms of monitoring. Our core focus was on ensuring there was a certain degree of legal compliance – if there was to be individual assessment (according to the course objectives) – so it was clear who wrote the examination. We therefore used monitoring, with the help of mobile phones, in which the student was followed during the entire examination. Basically, this ensured that we knew who wrote the examination and what happened during this time. Extremely time consuming. Many of us teachers who sat and observed felt very uncomfortable, like some kind of voyeur. The transition to regular on-campus invigilation has therefore been very liberating now during the re-examination period!
Even with monitored take-home examinations, there were different variants, ranging from ordinary examinations, where no other material may be used and the questions have to be answered under the student's own steam, to use of the new digital examination system “Inspera” or classic computer-based examination (i.e. a “paper examination” except written on the computer and submitted at a specified time).” 

“For Zoom-monitored examinations, we let the students know beforehand that we would provide follow-up oral examinations, at the request of either the student or the teacher, if there were technical difficulties or cheating was suspected. I know of at least 3 or 4 oral examinations that took place. This also entails many hours of extra effort from our teachers, but gave the student a chance to show what they are capable of in cases where the technology was too problematic.”

Regardless of form, we tried to let the students know in advance, on the course pages and on the first page of the examination, as well as at any test meetings with the Zoom monitors prior to the upcoming assignment and, of course, at the final question and answer session leading up to each examination. So, information about what is allowed and not allowed during an examination was definitely communicated to the best of our ability.

Plagiarism checks were carried out consistently
 

What probably had the greatest impact in minimising the number of cheating cases was that plagiarism checks were carried out consistently in all examinations (I am not sure whether this tool was used to the same extent previously). When we decided not to report a case, it was usually because the information had not been sufficiently clear. In such cases, there was some discussion among the teachers regarding how much information should be repeated and how far into the programme. It ended in the student’s favour.

“We were also clear about how Zoom monitoring would be carried out and what measures applied in cases of mobile phone malfunction, like telling the students to put their phone on the charger – there could still be cases where a student ‘forgot’. We also had an action plan for loss of connection. Other technical issues, e.g. bad network, were things we could only discuss with the students ahead of time (– for students to save examination answers locally on their computer for automatic submission as soon as the network was working against), but not influence. Some requested a spot at Uppsala Biomedical Centre because they did not trust their own network. We could only help by providing simple tips and feedback. Technical issues are on a completely different level. We were told that the examination coordination unit's IT monitors were bombarded during the first few examinations!”

Getting expert help is necessary since it could otherwise become too technically complicated.

“In summary, I can say that it took enormous joint efforts from all of us to be able to conduct all of the examinations under as legally compliant conditions as possible. Many students were extremely grateful that we managed to successfully complete the courses from start to finish. Then, as usual, there was a small percentage of students who were dissatisfied – mainly with the content of the examination.