Abstract
Digital media and online learning platforms provide a lot of new opportunities and convenience to learning and teaching. These platforms facilitate collaborative learning to a whole new level and bring new learning experience to students. However, some new online learning platforms also bring new challenges to issues related to academic honesty. Recently, it was found that a large portion of the course materials including lecture notes, tutorial notes, and exercise keys, were uploaded to these third-party platforms by students. Students often can easily obtain the completed assignments uploaded by classmates from these platforms, possibly provided convenient aids for cheating and plagiarism.
The objective of this project is to explore the design and implementation of a simple learning resources management system that can make every downloaded file identifiable and traceable. An online file storage system will be developed for hosting and dispatching the course materials. When a file is being downloaded from the platform, an electronic tag will be added to the file to store some key information about the download activity, such as the identity of the student who is downloading the file, and the date and time of the download. If a student made unauthorized uploads of course materials to an online learning platform, it is possible to trace the origin of the files by looking up the information encrypted in the electronic tags.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
The objective of this project is to explore the design and implementation of a simple learning resources management system to make every downloaded course file identifiable and traceable, with the aim to prevent students from uploading the course files to third-party online learning platforms in exchange for assignments and exam answers and upholding academic integrity.
Activities, process and outcomes
tags are added to the files at the same time, as the 3rd party online learning platforms usually convert the uploaded files into other formats, and tags of certain formats might be removed during the format conversion. Pilot test of the system was carried out on four selected undergraduate courses. Course notes and assignments were dispatched to students as electronic files on the system. No course materials and completed assignments were found to have been uploaded to the mainstream 3rd party online learning platforms like Course Hero during the pilot period. To identify possible cases of plagiarism, students are required to complete and submit their homework using the same (invisibly tagged) file they downloaded from the system. When the students submitted their assignments, the files were checked for the invisible tags that carried their students’ name and SID. No irregular acts of students were observed during the project pilot period.
Deliverables and evaluation
An online file storage system with tagging and tracing functions was developed. Students are required to register an account using their university student ID to access the course materials on the system. Important information about the download activity such as the student’s real identity and the date and time of the download are recorded and encrypted automatically into machine-readable electronic tags, and the tags are added to the file when a course file is being downloaded. It was found that the tags remained intact, and the downloaders of the files can be identified for most of the usual operations that would be performed on a course material or assignment file. No case of unauthorized file sharing or act of plagiarism was observed in the pilot test period. The pilot test showed that the developed protocol and system is an effective tool for upholding academic integrity among undergraduate students.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
The project idea, deliverables and outcomes were shared informally over several occasions with some teachers within the Department of Chemistry, and also some other teachers of different teaching units in the Faculty of Science. They expressed strong interest in applying the online file tagging system for their courses to enhance academic honesty in the coming semesters.
Impact on teaching and learning
It is a recent and common situation that students making unauthorized uploads of course materials to 3rd party online learning platforms, and it happened almost to all courses of different departments and faculties. It gives rise to various undesirable issues of plagiarism and copyrights, and attacks the core values of academic integrity. Teachers may also have encountered cases that the assignments submitted by students were actually done by someone else, or copied from a previous work. With the online file tagging system developed, students are discouraged to perform unauthorized uploads of course materials to third-party websites, and share completed assignment works as the course files are all traceable. It means that students will have to bear a greater risk when they upload the files in exchange for chances of cheating. This can contribute to the uphold of the core value of academic honesty among students.
