Academic Integrity at Seneca | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

in the March 2020 issue

This update on Academic Integrity includes tips for promoting a culture of academic integrity in your online tests and examinations and a must-read article about academic integrity at Seneca written by Amy Lin, Director of the Teaching & Learning Centre. If you are passionate about fostering a culture of academic integrity across Seneca, you may be interested in filling one of the vacant faculty representative positions on the Academic Integrity Subcommittee.

Maintaining Academic Integrity in Online Tests and Exams

As you map out the remainder of your courses for Winter 2020 and begin delivering the content in an online environment, you may find yourself in a situation where you are creating online tests and examinations. The Teaching & Learning Centre encourages the use of the following online testing strategies that promote academic integrity:

• Clearly communicate expectations for students on online tests.
• Be explicit about what constitutes collaborative group work and what is individual work.
• Provide clear instructions on how online tests should be taken. Keep the timeframe for accessing the test short, but reasonable.
• Design questions to suit an open-book style of testing.
• Randomize the order of questions.
• Display questions one at a time and prohibit back-tracking in the test.
• Be available to answer questions related to the test.
• Debrief online tests/quizzes with students to assess the knowledge of what they have submitted.

Shift Happens article

The International Centre for Academic Integrity (ICAI) held their annual conference in early March in Portland, Oregon. A delegation of four from Seneca attended and presented their journey on shifting the culture of academic integrity college-wide. The Seneca delegation included Laurel Schollen, Vice President Academic, Amy Lin, Director of the Teaching & Learning Centre, Kathryn Klages, Manager of Library Literacies & Outreach, and Charanpreet Deu, President of the Seneca Student Federation.

To help promote their session, and the conference in general, Amy Lin, Director of the Teaching & Learning Centre, wrote an article published on the ICAI website in February: “Shift Happens: Engaging college-wide participation in Academic Integrity programming.”

Open Call for Faculty Representative to Join the Academic Integrity Subcommittee

As a standing committee of Academic College Council (ACC), the Academic Integrity Subcommittee provides regular reports to and receives feedback from ACC. The Academic Integrity Subcommittee reviews, discusses, and seeks feedback from the college community on the academic integrity policy, procedures, and resources to support the vision of our institutional Academic Integrity program. The Academic Integrity subcommittee also serves as an expert reference group to ACC, providing insight and input, acting in an advisory capacity to the Vice-President, Academic. This subcommittee meets once a month (September to June) on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Newnham Campus. For more information, visit the page and view the .

We are seeking two faculty representatives to join the subcommittee in September 2020. Faculty representatives will be selected based on their innovative ideas, understanding of contemporary approaches to academic integrity which are grounded in literature, creativity, and the ability to apply their thinking on an institutional level. If you are passionate about fostering a culture of Academic Integrity across Seneca, please send a letter of interest, stating how your experience aligns with the profile above, to Pina.Marinelli-Henriques@senecacollege.ca by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 24, 2020.

View the March 2020 issue of the Academic Newsletter.