Informed choice? How the United Kingdom's Key Information Set fails to represent pedagogy to potential students

This paper explores the ways in which information about course pedagogy has been represented to potential students through national descriptors and specifications such as the United Kingdom’s Key Information Set. It examines the extent to which such descriptors provide helpful information about pedagogy, for example innovative uses of technology. The paper starts by exploring the wider context within which these descriptors have been developed, including a comparison of similar descriptions internationally. This is followed by a comparative analysis, in which two courses (one single honours undergraduate degree, one Massive Open Online Course) are classified and compared. This serves to illustrate the blind spots in classifications such as the Key Information Set. The paper concludes by arguing that further work is needed to develop classification schemes that both address explicitly the interests of potential students and are able to represent the pedagogic decisions that differentiate teaching in contemporary higher education

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

This paper presents a case study carried out at Sofia University in Bulgaria, describing the relationship between two developments, firstly an expanding involvement with online learning and e-assessment, and secondly the development of institutional approaches to academic integrity. The two developments interact, the widening use of e-learning and e-assessment raising new issues for academic integrity, and the technology providing new tools to support academic integrity, with the involvement in technological developments acting as a catalyst for changes in approaches to academic integrity. The aim of this study is to describe in what ways the integration of technologies for student authentication and authorship checking in this university has begun to influence teachers’ approach to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify specific issues that need to be resolved for the future of academic integrity in the university. Data collected during the implementation of pilots for the project TeSLA - An adaptive trust-based e-assessment system - enabled an examination of the perspectives of administrators, teachers and students on approaches to cheating and plagiarism, and on possible future directions. The data suggests that the piloting of the TeSLA system has triggered a deepening consideration of approaches to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify important issues for future developments

Scoping a Vision for Formative E-Assessment (FEASST)

This research aimed to delineate a domain map for formative e-assessment. At a conceptual level this includes a description of key processes involved, and at a practical level this includes examples of existing practice as well as some technical system requirements. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects carried out by IOE researchers

Addressing cheating in e-assessment using student authentication and authorship checking systems: teachers’ perspectives

Student authentication and authorship checking systems are intended to help teachers address cheating and plagiarism. This study set out to investigate higher education teachers’ perceptions of the prevalence and types of cheating in their courses with a focus on the possible changes that might come about as a result of an increased use of e-assessment, ways of addressing cheating, and how the use of student authentication and authorship checking systems might impact on assessment practice. This study was carried out within the context of the project TeSLA (an Adaptive Trust-based e-assessment System for Learning) which is developing a system intended for integration within an institution’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) offering a variety of instruments to assure student authentication and authorship checking. Data was collected at two universities that were trialling the TeSLA system, one in Turkey, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and distance education, and one in Bulgaria, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and blended learning. The study used questionnaires and interviews, building on existing TeSLA project evaluation activities and extending these to explore the specific areas we wished to examine in more depth. In three of the four contexts cheating was seen by teachers as a serious and growing problem, the exception was the distance education context where the teachers believed that the existing procedures were effective in controlling cheating. Most teachers in all four contexts expected cheating to become a greater problem with increased use of e-assessment. Student authentication was not seen as a major problem in any of the contexts, as this was felt to be well controlled through face-to-face proctored assessments, though the problem of assuring effective authentication was seen by many teachers as a barrier to increased use of e-assessment. Authorship checking was seen as a major issue in all contexts, as copying and pasting from the web, ghost writing and plagiarism were all reported as widely prevalent, and authorship checking was seen as becoming even more important with increased use of e-assessment. Teachers identified a third category of cheating behaviours, which was the accessing of information from other students, from written materials, and from the internet during assessments. Teachers identified a number of approaches to addressing the problem of cheating: education, technology, assessment design, sanctions, policy, and surveillance. Whilst technology was not seen as the most important approach to prevention, student authentication and authorship checking systems were seen as relevant in terms of reducing reliance on face-to-face proctored examinations, and in improving the quality of assessment through supporting the employment of a wider range of assessment methods. The development of authorship checking based on computational linguistic approaches was an area of particular interest. Student authentication and authorship checking systems were not seen as being able to address the third category of cheating behaviours that the study identified

Study trip as means of expanded learning

This article explores the study trip as an interconnected activity of work and play, constituting an extended means of teaching design studio in spatial design related disciplines. This study analyses the case of a cohort of about 200 students involved in a joint project in three cities, Athens, Tokyo and London, where groups were challenged with a common project brief. The students conducted empirical studies of the cities through play and enjoyment. The case study provides evidence of the benefits and issues emerging in this particular teaching and learning method of project-based and field work research in spatial design

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

Checking the identity of students and authorship of their online submissions is a major concern in Higher Education due to the increasing amount of plagiarism and cheating using the Internet. The literature on the effects of e-authentication systems for teaching staff is very limited because it is a novel procedure for them. A considerable gap is to understand teaching staff’ views regarding the use of e-authentication instruments and how they impact trust in e-assessment. This mixed-method study examines the concerns and practices of 108 teaching staff who used the TeSLA - Adaptive Trust-based e-Assessment System in six countries: UK, Spain, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Finland and Turkey. The findings revealed some technological, organisational and pedagogical issues related to accessibility, security, privacy and e-assessment design and feedback. Recommendations are to provide: a FAQ and an audit report with results, to raise awareness about data security and privacy, to develop policies and guidelines about fraud detection and prevention, e-assessment best practices and course team support

Determination of Inactive Powers in a Single-Phase AC Network

Based on the development of the theory of reactive power and distortion power, starting with the works of Fryze and Budeanu, it has been found that the contradictions in the definition of the components of inactive powers are caused by errors in the introduced intermediate concepts and corresponding calculations when switching to nonlinear and non-sinusoidal AC circuits. The materials of the works of modern researchers and the numerical calculations carried out made it possible to trace the differences between reactive power and distortion power, to confirm the orthogonality properties of the active, reactive power, and distortion power components. The paper defines the conditions for achieving a power balance in an AC network with nonlinear loads, compiled and tested criteria leading to the absence of distortion power in a single-phase AC network. Using the time base of the projection of the generalized vectors in vector diagrams, it is shown that compliance with the criteria for the absence of distortion power does not determine the mutual similarity of the voltage curve with the current curve for a nonlinear load. It has been found that the well-known term “distortion power” has an unfortunate wording, since this power, although it characterizes the interaction of harmonics of currents and voltages with different ordinal numbers, is not determined by the visual similarity or the degree of distortion of the load current waveforms relative to the supply voltage curve

A Crisis in Physics Education: Games to the Rescue!

An education in Physics develops both strong cognitive and practical skills. These are well-matched to the needs of employers, from engineering to banking. Physics provides the foundation for all engineering and scientific disciplines including computing technologies, aerospace, communication, and also biosciences and medicine. In academe, Physics addresses fundamental questions about the universe, the nature of reality, and of the complex socio-economic systems comprising our daily lives. Yet today, there are emerging concerns about Physics education: Secondary school interest in Physics is falling, as is the number of Physics school teachers. There is clearly a crisis in physics education; recent research has identified principal factors. Starting from a review of these factors, and from recommendations of professional bodies, this paper proposes a novel solution – the use of Computer Games to teach physics to school children, to university undergraduates and to teacher-trainees