Since Covid-19, UCL has moved towards a ‘digital first’ approach for assessment. Despite significant advantages, technology-enabled assessment presents new challenges. One of these is a widespread concern in HE around student academic misconduct, now amplified by the advent of generative AI.
Breaches in academic integrity can have serious implications for students, both during their studies and in future professional life. In this session, student and staff researchers present key themes from a series of focus groups exploring perspectives on academic misconduct, integrity and assessment environments. Headline findings include some mismatches between staff and student understanding around academic support. While there were shared concerns around student anxiety driving misconduct, students tended to refer to ‘referencing’ (as a proxy for plagiarism) while staff highlighted contract (and AI) cheating and collusion as major areas of concern.
Overall, we perceive a need for greater open dialogue between students and staff.
Academic Integrity Edu conf pres - v2