User Authentication and Academic Integrity in Online Assessment

Abstract

This chapter reviews the issues surrounding user authentication and academic integrity in online assessment and offers a number of academic and technological solutions for dealing with student identification and plagiarism. It argues that even though violations of academic integrity are seemingly ubiquitous across all forms of educational delivery, the relative recency of online education has led to growing concerns among faculty and administrators. Although technological solutions for addressing the issues of user authentication and academic integrity are increasing in number, the chapter emphasizes the need for effective instruction and authentic assessment as the strongest means of deterring and reducing the number of academic integrity violations.