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

Abstract

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: the UK, Spain, the 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.