e‐Authentication for online assessment: A mixed‐method study

Abstract

Authenticating the students' identity and authenticity of their work is increasingly important to reduce academic malpractices and for quality assurance purposes in Education. There is a growing body of research about technological innovations to combat cheating and plagiarism. However, the literature is very limited on the impact of e-authentication systems across distinctive end-users because it is not a widespread practice at the moment. A considerable gap is to understand whether the use of eauthentication systems would increase trust on e-assessment, and to extend, whether students' acceptance would vary across gender, age and previous experiences. This study aims to shed light on this area by examining the attitudes and experiences of 328 students who used an authentication system known as adaptive trust-based e-assessment system for learning (TeSLA). Evidence from mixed-method analysis suggests a broadly positive acceptance of these e-authentication technologies by distance education students. However, significant differences in the students' responses indicated, for instance, that men were less concerned about providing personal data than women; middle-aged participants were more aware of the nuances of cheating and plagiarism; while younger students were more likely to reject e-authentication, considerably due to data privacy and security and students with disabilities due to concerns about their special needs.

O Processo De Autoria Acadêmica Apoiadas Pelas Tecnologias Digitais Da Informação E Comunicação No Desenvolvimento De Web Currículos

“…Ao escreverem um texto, mais da metade dos estudantes procura por referências na web e sabe da importância de incluir citações de forma equilibrada no texto. Esses índices podem ser indicativos de que as tecnologias estão sendo pouco empregadas no processo de pesquisa, sistematização, organização e armazenamento de produções acadêmicas (OKADA et al, 2018).…”

“…Apesar de os discentes responderem que estão cientes do que é plágio e que podem ser detectados com tecnologias, ao serem questionados sobre as responsabilidades do autor na web, pouco mais da metade (59,0%) afirmou que está ciente das implicações de ser autor na web.Nesse sentido, é possível que os discentes não estejam tão conscientes do que é ser autor na web ou limitando a autoria à ausência de plágio. Para os autoresOkada et al, (2018), e Goldsmith, Willey e Boud (2012), a autoria acadêmica deve perpassar o uso de normas acadêmicas, seleção de fontes confiáveis, uso de TDIC para o mapeamento de referências, compreender o alcance das informações na web, entre outros aspectos já expostos neste manuscrito.O suporte para pesquisa, sistematização, organização e armazenamento de produções acadêmicas (OKADA et al, 2018) são algumas das competências que devem ser integradas ao web currículo a fim de promover a fluência tecnológica dos discentes. Um pouco mais da metade da amostra (53,0%) utiliza tecnologias para escrever e planejar suas produções e apenas 44% dos discentes fazem uso das referências da web durante o processo de elaboração das produções.…”

Using a Student Authentication and Authorship Checking System as a Catalyst for Developing an Academic Integrity Culture: a Bulgarian Case Study

“…Approaches that have been explored include those related to policy (Bretag et al 2011), teaching and learning approaches (E.J. Morris 2016), restorative justice (Kara and MacAlister 2010) and the use of technology (Okada et al 2019b).…”

“…Technology offers a number of approaches which might play a role in addressing cheating. The use of technology for plagiarism detection in universities is well established and other technologies such as student authentication, proctoring and style checking are becoming increasing available (Okada et al 2019b). This paper is principally concerned with two groups of such technologies: those related to student authentication and those related to authorship checking.…”

Pedagogical approaches for e‐assessment with authentication and authorship verification in Higher Education

“…One of the main concerns for the adoption of e‐assessment is to ensure that the person who performs the assessment is the correct claimant (authentication) and to demonstrate that the work performed is original (authorship) (Noguera, Guerrero‐Roldán, & Rodríguez, ; Okada, Mendonca, & Scott, ; Okada, Whitelock et al . ). A growing body of literature has explored and recommended the use of security mechanisms to identify students and detect illegitimate behaviours in e‐assessment (Harmon, Lambrinos, & Buffolino, ; Osman, Salim, & Abuobieda, ; Simon et al ., ; Watson & Sottile, ).…”