Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World: Preventing E-Cheating and Supporting Academic Integrity in Higher Education

Description

Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World explores the phenomenon of e-cheating and identifies ways to bolster assessment to ensure that it is secured against threats posed by technology. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the book develops the concept of assessment security through research from cybersecurity, game studies, artificial intelligence and surveillance studies. Throughout, there is a rigorous examination of the ways people cheat in different contexts, and the effectiveness of different approaches at stopping cheating. This evidence informs the development of standards and metrics for assessment security, and ways that assessment design can help address e-cheating. Its new concept of assessment security both complements and challenges traditional notions of academic integrity. By focusing on proactive, principles-based approaches, the book equips educators, technologists and policymakers to address both current e-cheating as well as future threats. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements Chapter 1: E-Cheating Defining e-cheating What is different about e-cheating? Academic integrity, fraud, hacking and e-cheating An affordance-based taxonomy of e-cheating approaches Providing access to unauthorised information Breaching information restrictions Information-smuggling devices Running an online examination within a virtual machine, and running a web browser in the host operating system Text input hardware Accessing questions, solutions, answers and exemplars ‘Braindumps’ of exam questions Essay banks and assignment trading sites Forensic analysis to identify questions and answers Cognitive offloading to a tool Essay spinning, auto-paraphrase and back-translation tools Translation tools Computer Algebra Solvers Bespoke essay writing tools Outsourcing work to a person Contract cheating Online course-taking Remote coaches Expert input Disrupting the assessment process Thwarting anti-cheating approaches Bypassing text-matching software Defeating remote proctoring software Bypassing website blocking with a VPN Pulling the plug Causing problems for students and teachers Denial of service attacks E-cheating: a significant problem, but what can we do about it? Things to do Chapter 2: Assessment security What is assessment? Two key features of assessment security Authentication Control of circumstances Information Tools A note about restrictions Availability (Im)perfect assessment security Approaches to improving assessment security Detection, evidence and penalties Technology Surveillance Lockdown Stylometrics Content matching Assessment design Legal approaches Problems with assessment security Things to do Chapter 3: The E-Cheating lifecycle and how to disrupt it Awareness raising Students don’t just find e-cheating; e-cheating finds students Review sites, discount codes and seduction ‘Free’ e-cheating Approaches for disrupting e-cheating awareness raising Approach 1: Lobbying platforms to disallow the promotion of e-cheating Approach 2: Blocking access to e-cheating sites Approach 3: Legislation against the promotion of e-cheating Approach 4: Promotion of academic integrity Purchasing Contract cheating websites E-cheating hardware websites Gig economy websites Large-scale e-commerce sites Dark web Approaches for disrupting e-cheating purchases Approach 1: Lobbying payment processors Approach 2: Lobbying gig economy platforms Content production Human cheating content production Computerised cheating content production Approaches for disrupting e-cheating content production Approach 1: Remote proctoring of the content production process Approach 2: Lobbying content-matching services to secure their products Delivery, submission and after-sales care Delivery Submission After-sales care Approaches for disrupting e-cheating delivery, submission and after-sales care Approach 1: E-cheating awareness-raising amongst staff Approach 2: E-cheating detection approaches Approach 3: Dialogic feedback approaches Approach 4: Amnesties Things to do Chapter 4: Cybersecurity, E-Cheating and assessment security Cybersecurity basics Implications of cybersecurity for assessment security Cybersecurity depends on an adversarial mindset Assessment security has a harder authentication problem to solve than regular cybersecurity’s authentication problem The contexts of assessment security impose some challenging constraints for security Assessment security depends on hardware security and software security Assessment security will always be imperfect, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try Security through obscurity is not enough Once an expert makes software that can cheat, everybody can cheat Attack is easier than defence Attackers don’t need to account for laws, policy, ethics, student rights or public opinion Improving assessment security through cybersecurity Penetration testing Disclosure and transparency Working with students Working with cybersecurity Things to do Chapter 5: Lessons from E-Cheating in games and gambling Cheating in online games Cheating in esports Cheating in online gambling Anti-cheating technologies in games and gambling What lessons can we learn? Even with much bigger budgets, e-cheating cannot be completely defeated Schneier is right: once an expert writes software that can do something, anybody can do that something Honest players are a big asset in reducing cheating Anti-cheating technologies reify particular understandings of e-cheating Independent bodies can regulate and keep records on individuals that span contexts Some degree of secrecy and undercover operations is necessary to keep ahead of e-cheating Anti-cheating can be offered as a service To understand e-cheating’s future, look to games and gambling Things to do Chapter 6: E-Cheating, assessment security and artificial intelligence What AI is and what it can and cannot do AI for e-cheating AI can already meet some learning outcomes for students; do we still need to assess them? What if AI becomes so good at meeting outcomes for students that we can’t spot it? Where is the boundary between AI help and AI cheating? AI for assessment security Can AI detect e-cheating? Can AI be the decision-maker? Explainability and transparency Accuracy Fairness Accountability Empathy AI is imperfect but it scales well What will humans and machines need to do? Things to do Chapter 7: Surveillance and the weaponisation of academic integrity Academic integrity, e-cheating, assessment security and surveillance culture Who will surveil students and to what end? Routine surveillance will catch too many Trust, surveillance and gamification The future of surveillance is weaponisation Alternatives to surveillance Living with surveillance Things to do Chapter 8: Metrics and standards for assessment security The problems of metricless assessment security Difficulty to cheat metrics Cost to cheat Cost factors Cost to cheat and cost to subcontract on five task types Traditional closed-book exam Cost to cheat: free or very cheap Cost to subcontract: allegedly $3,500 Remote proctored exam Cost to cheat: nil to $50 Cost to subcontract: $140 Unsupervised computer-based multiple-choice test Authentic take-home video task Cost to cheat: free Cost to subcontract: very task-dependent; hourly rate of professional as an estimate Traditional essay Cost to cheat: free Cost to subcontract: $100 Limitations of cheating difficulty metrics Detection accuracy metrics Limitations of detection accuracy metrics Proof metrics Limitations of proof metrics Prevalence metrics Limitations of prevalence metrics Learning, teaching, assessment and student experience metrics Limitations of learning, teaching, assessment and student experience metrics Towards standards for assessment security Things to do Chapter 9: Structuring and designing assessment for security Assessment design trumps assessment security Assessment design decisions What doesn’t work in designing assessment for security Obvious mistakes that weaken assessment security Reusing the same assessment task Unsupervised online tests Take-home ‘one right answer’ or lower-level tasks Poor examination practices Invigilation and assessment security Group work and assessment security Authentic restrictions and assessment security Programmatic assessment security Dialogic feedback and assessment security Random assessment security checks Assessment design and quality control processes Things to do Chapter 10: Conclusion: Securing assessment against E-Cheating Focus on assessment security alongside academic integrity Take an affordance-based approach to understanding e-cheating, and a principles-based approach to stopping it Perfect is the enemy of good, so aim for incremental improvements Build a culture of evidence and disclosure Resist assessment conservatism and assessment security theatre References Index