Group work
Assessment at stake?
Release was granted by the students for use of the images i
Purpose of case study
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Target audience: Students, lecturers and
academic integrity decision makers
Key issue: Academic integrity as a problem of
taking responsibility for honest scholarship.
Purpose: To build awareness of (student)
responsibilities for academic integrity and how to
assist students to achieve their best learning
outcomes.
Materials: Full case scenario; University policy;
Readings
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Our research
Interviews with 28 senior academic
integrity stakeholders at 6 Australian
universities
No. 1 recommendation for good practice:
 Provide appropriate and on-going
professional development for all staff in
relation to academic integrity policy and
process.
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Case Study: Mimi’s group
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Meetings for the group task have been
infrequent
Close to the deadline and Mimi’s
contribution is a copy and paste
The other 4 students request that they
not be penalized because of Mimi’s poor
work
They are told to return to their ‘working in
a team guidelines’
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Working in a team is an important
competency
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They feel this is unfair
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Despite a hasty rewrite of Mimi’s text,
this section receives low marks.
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Responding to complaints, the
subject coordinator reviews the case.
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Mimi’s story
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“I am not a cheater!”
Her work was not cheating because she had understood the
texts and had found the best answers.
Excluded by the group.
According to her, they lacked integrity because they did not
follow the team guidelines.
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Questions for student discussion
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5.
6.
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8.
What do you predict happened as a result of the meeting between the
student copyist and the coordinator?
What does academic integrity mean to you?
How does your policy define academic integrity?
List student responsibilities to support academic integrity.
What does your university policy say about responsibilities for academic
integrity?
Are the students in the group dealing with academic misconduct or poor
scholarship?
Re-tell this case so that learning opportunities for all the students are
maximised, in a context where academic integrity is fostered.
Would you like to know what happened following the meeting with the
coordinator?
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Questions for staff discussion
1.
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9.
What should happen to the student copyist?
What does academic integrity mean to you?
How does your policy define academic integrity?
List staff responsibilities to support academic integrity and ensure proper
assessment takes place.
What does your university policy say about responsibilities for academic
integrity?
Discuss the role of the tutor and / or coordinator in this case.
What are the issues of assessment in group work?
Re-tell this case so that learning opportunities for all the students are
maximised, in a context where academic integrity is fostered.
Would you like to know what happened following the meeting with the
coordinator?
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Outcomes
The group mark was reassessed without taking into account Mimi’s
section.
Mimi was sent to the Academic Language and Learning Centre for
advice about proper acknowledgement and was advised to have
regular consultations for help with her academic writing.
The university instituted an introduction to academic integrity principles,
mandatory for commencing students.
The subject coordinator asked the Teaching and Learning staff to work
with her on the curriculum so that assessment tasks matched the
learning activities.
Further complaints had been received from local and international
students about the difficulties of trying to work together in a group.
This led to a ‘working with culturally and linguistically diverse
students’ workshop for staff.
A peer marking system was trialed with mixed results.
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Useful references
Baurain, B (2011). Cross-cultural moral explorations in plagiarism. In Phan Le Ha & B. Baurain (Eds.) Voices, Identities,
Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures. Bradford, UK: Emerald.
Bretag, T. (2008) Responding to plagiarism: The need to engage with students’ ‘real lives’, Refereed paper presented
at the ATN Assessment Conference: Engaging students in assessment, University of South Australia, 20-21
November.
Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., East, J., Green, M., James, C., McGowan, U., Partridge, L., Walker, R. & Wallace, M. (2011).
Academic Integrity Standards: A Preliminary Analysis of the Academic Integrity Policies at Australian Universities,
Australian Universities Quality Forum, 29 June-1 July, Melbourne, Australia.
Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., Wallace, M., Walker, R., James, C., Green, M., East, J., McGowan, U. & Partridge, L. (2011).
Core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy in Australian higher education, International Journal for
Educational Integrity, Vol 7(2), pp. 3-12, available online:
http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/IJEI/article/viewFile/759/574
Devlin, M., & Gray, K. (1995). In their own words: A qualitative study of the reasons Australian university students
plagiarize. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(2), 181-182.
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For further information, references and resources from the
Academic Integrity Standards Project, please go to:
http://www.aisp.apfei.edu.au
Support for this project/activity has been provided by the
Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The
views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.
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