Addressing Academic Misconduct in Transnational Education Computing Courses

Abstract

Despite the best efforts of instructors to promote academic integrity, some students will always engage in academic misconduct. This manifests itself in forms such as plagiarism, contract cheating and exam cheating. There are particular academic misconduct challenges in computing not seen in other disciplines. In this discipline, students are tech-savvy and regularly exposed online to material on “how to cheat”. Students are expected not only to become proficient writers, but also to develop programming skills and incorporate source code written by third parties which they access online in code repositories. When computing courses are taught in transnational education (TNE) settings, there is further cause for concern. Local norms may mean that the sharing of knowledge and information amongst students is expected, even though this would be considered to be a form of collusion elsewhere. Interpretations of what is meant by academic integrity may differ. Technical solutions to identify and investigate academic integrity breaches may not be widely available. Despite the importance of academic integrity, little advice is published specific to TNE in computing. This chapter provides an exploration of these areas as they surround academic misconduct in TNE computing courses and makes recommendations for those involved in the assurance of academic integrity.