This blog is brought to you from Dr Natalie Mack, an academic in Biotechnology, based in the School of Biosciences at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is writing on the topic of student academic integrity training, drawing upon her experience as an academic misconduct officer to develop an effective quiz-based approach to raise awareness and reduce incidences of accidental misconduct.
The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a rise in our open-book/remote access assessments, and alongside this, the availability of artificial intelligence (AI) software has increased. These factors created an upsurge in our academic misconduct cases; a common problem in the higher education sector.
Our academic misconduct officers in the School of Biosciences reported often dealing with similar issues in cases resulting from students’ lack of understanding or awareness of our academic integrity expectations. Consequently, a new strategy was required to enhance student awareness, tackle those common problems and prevent accidental misconduct.
Good Academic Practice Quiz
We developed a “Good Academic Practice Quiz” on Microsoft Forms with 11 multiple choice questions covering common misconceptions and scenarios (Figure 1) that is also available as a LearnHigher resource. The quiz helps students engage with and understand the university’s formal policies and procedures.
Upon completion of the quiz, students receive instant results (Figure 2) with automated feedback explaining why their answers were right or wrong (Figure 3).
The quiz is made available to all taught Biosciences students on an annual basis by email and also embedded within core Year 1 Biosciences modules.
It is set as a mandatory task for all incomers and encouraged as a refresher for returners. Formal university policies are signposted at the same time to help students answer the questions and gain awareness of where to find this information on the university website.
Here is an example of our email text:
“Dear all taught students,
Please can you complete our “Good Academic Practice Quiz”<insert link to the quiz> as soon as possible, and by Monday 4th November 3 PM latest. This is a mandatory task for all students, and we will be checking that everyone has completed the quiz. This short task will help prepare you for your upcoming assessments.
To help you answer the questions we recommend you first read the “university’s academic misconduct policy”<insert link to the policy>.
After you submit your answers, you will receive your total score and some feedback for each question. If you get any questions wrong, please take note of the feedback and ensure you become familiar with our expectations regarding conduct in summative assessments.
Kind regards,
School of Biosciences Academic Misconduct team”
Positive Impact of the Quiz
Feedback from students completing the quiz has been very positive.
“Completing the Good Academic Practice quiz was incredibly useful…This well-developed initiative reinforced the essential principles of good academic practice and has significantly enhanced my understanding and application of these standards.” (MSc student)
“The knowledge gained from the quiz has been valuable in ensuring that my academic work adheres to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. It has also made me more vigilant about proper citation practices and the importance of independent work.” (MSc student)
It has also been well received by academic staff teaching academic integrity to Year 1 undergraduates, proving a useful exercise for their classes – especially when engaged in collaboratively and/or to seed discussion.
“I got the class to open the quiz on personal devices. We worked through it together, allowing a broad discussion about scenarios in the quiz and students a chance to ask questions. It proved instrumental in facilitating dialogue about student concerns over academic integrity, allowing students to pose questions I had not considered and providing an opportunity to shape remaining content of the module.” (Year 1 Module Convenor)
“I used the quiz at the end of a session where I had talked about different forms academic misconduct might take, to reinforce what we had covered in the session. It was therefore invaluable as a follow-up exercise.” (Year 1 Module Convenor)
The quiz has helped reduce our academic misconduct case numbers – by more than 60% since its introduction (from 45 in 2021-22 to 15 in 2023-24).
Our academic misconduct officers also find the records of who has completed the quiz to be helpful during investigations and when determining case outcomes, as they provide evidence of engagement (or lack of) with our training provision. Where students have failed to complete it previously, they can be re-signposted to it in case outcome letters to effectively support students with addressing gaps in their knowledge.
Looking Ahead
As AI-related concerns continue to rise and we inevitably evolve to incorporate acceptable AI use, the quiz can be adapted as needed to fit updated policies. For example, question 7 on our quiz was updated for 2025-26 to reflect introduction of AI use statements for each summative assessment in the School of Biosciences. We will continue to highlight the quiz to all students in the school annually, ensuring their academic integrity learning is optimally supported.
The questions, answer options, and automated feedback for each answer option, are provided in the LearnHigher resource. We would be happy for others to make use of these, of course adapting the content to fit their own institution’s policies and regulations. If anyone would like any additional support with setting this up, please get in touch with Dr Natalie Mack (Natalie.mack@nottingham.ac.uk).
Bio:
Dr Natalie Mack is a teaching-focused academic in Biotechnology, in the School of Biosciences, at the University of Nottingham, UK. She has over six years experience as an academic misconduct officer, dealing with undergraduate cases for her school. In addition, she is an admissions tutor, Athena Swan lead, neurodiversity champion, research ethics reviewer, convenor and contributor to multiple undergraduate and postgraduate modules, and a student project supervisor in cancer research.
