Universities can’t stop all the cheats but they can make it harder for them

Former Deakin U VC Jane den Hollander urges universities to identify students who cheat.

“We should name and shame because that’s the best way to learn that there’s no fun in this and there’s no gain,” she told a conference on the new academic integrity law, convened last week by study-support provider (and CMM advertiser) Studiosity.

Graduating students need to know, “that everyone around them who is graduating is just like them, they have worked really hard and they deserve what they are getting.

“The fear and the irritation that happens in communities when they know someone’s cheated to get that high distinction is one of the most corrosive things that we deal with in classrooms,” she warned.

Professor den Hollander also argued universities need to give staff  training, “to do assessment properly,” to make it harder for students and cheating services, “some of the simplistic ways we do our assessment are not going to withstand those people.”

But the task is suppression, not eradication, “I think making it harder for cheats rather than trying to catch the cheats is the way to go and bring those numbers down, because we need to operate for the 99 percent or the 95 percent who genuinely want to learn.”

As to the new law; “I don’t think legislation deters anyone if they genuinely are pressured or otherwise predisposed to be dishonest. But it does make it aware for everyone else how hard it is and perhaps stop some people doing it. We need to educate our students … to make it harder for them to go down the slippery path where it appears to be easy.”