Academic Integrity/Misconduct Prevention

One Week Before Your Course Starts

• Set the tone early. With accelerated summer courses, everything moves quickly. Upfront clarity and communication helps prevent issues later (at the very least, makes following up more clear).
• Email your roster with a short introduction and attach your syllabus, along with a reminder of expectations.

First Day or Week of Class (dependent on modality)

• Reiterate university policy as well as your class-specific rules for academic integrity in the first live, Canvas, or video-based announcement. Include expectations about how generative AI fits, or doesn’t fit, into this approach. 
• Ask students to acknowledge that they have read and understand these expectations; a Canvas quiz is a good way to do this.

See resources above and consider contacting aio@ucsc.edu for support. In Summer 2026, AIO will pilot a virtual 10-minute class visit program for synchronous hybrid courses on a first-come, first-served basis.

Quick Summer Strategies to Make Assessments (More) Secure

• For Canvas Online Discussions – require an initial post before seeing others’ posts
• For Canvas Quizzes/Exams
  • Use shuffle questions and shuffle answers 
  • Set tight completion windows instead of all-day access 
  • Enable one-question-at-a-time with no backtracking.
  • Use question banks to auto-generate unique versions.
  • Add a short reflection question at the end to disrupt copy/paste behavior.
• For Essay/Written Assignments
  •  Include a brief reflection on process or tools used.
  •  Require outline or thinking step before final submission.
  • Tie prompts to class-specific, personally relevant, or local examples to reduce AI applicability.
  • If you plan to use detection technology for text-matching or for genAI use, be transparent with students (and consult the message from VPDUE Hughey regarding genAI detection).
• For STEM/Problem Sets (Gradescope & Canvas)
  • Use parameter randomization or numeric variants.
  • Allow handwritten or photo-upload work to individualize responses.
  •  Prompt students to show how they arrived at an answer, not just the final output.

Available Tools to Pair with Prevention Strategies

Tool	Best Use For	Summer Tip
Gradescope	Courses that use problem sets, any paper-based assessment, any exams that could be administered with Scantron	Use “Create Variants” for finals to prevent coordination.
ProctorU (by request)	Timed exams in Canvas or other digital platforms	Email the Teaching and Learning Center for more information
Zoom proctoring	Timed exams, paper-based assessments	Use TAs or readers to proctor smaller groups of students

*Note: Adapted from The Opposite of Cheating (2025, p. 131), consider adopting one or more of Bertram Gallant and Rettinger’s approaches to designing assessments for integrity: 

1. Take steps such as:
   1. Infusing integrity into lessons and assessment;
   2. Aligning expectations with assessment rubrics;
   3. Allowing and coopting collaboration;
   4. Giving opportunities for revision; 
   5. Giving students choice and control;
   6. Making your assessments authentic;
   7. Planning for cognitive offloading;
   8. Including oral assessments;
2. Play around with GenAI tools to plan how they might relate to some of the strategies listed above.
3. Seek support from TLC instructional designers and/or the AIO to talk through any of these steps; in addition to The Opposite of Cheating, Small Teaching Online (Darby & Lang, 2019) is available online at McHenry Library, and well worth a read. 

When You Suspect Misconduct

• Notify the student(s) involved about your concerns. Unless you learn something that convinces you no misconduct occurred, instructors are required to report concerns through the suspected academic misconduct resolution process.
• Reporting: The reporting threshold listed in the Academic Integrity Policy requires that instructors investigate and report reasonable suspicions of potential misconduct,** with evidence forwarded to the Academic Integrity Office for further review and follow-up.
• **Starting Fall 2025, ‘investigate’ no longer requires synchronous (in-person, Zoom) meeting with student(s) involved; it can entail a written (email) exchange where you give student(s) the chance to address your concerns and/or ask them to describe how they completed the assignment(s) or assessment(s) in question. 
• Feel free to contact the Academic Integrity Office for informal, confidential consultation about any questions or concerns with assessing/reporting suspected misconduct: aio@ucsc.edu.
• Academic Misconduct: Self-Care for Instructors