Academic integrity officers meetings

When I became the academic integrity officer of the School, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Initially, I was just dealing with students who had copied and pasted fragments (or more) of text from the sources they had used, or worked too closely together. Things are different now.

The majority of cases I deal with are cases of suspected inappropriate use of AI. And that means that ideally, I can tell my fellow staff members exactly what to look out for when marking, and then when they report something, ask the students exactly the right questions in order to find out if they are indeed guilty as charged. And then do the documentation that I have to do as efficiently as possible. 

I don't have to do all of this on my own; especially when it comes to what to tell the fellow staff, we have been thinking about that with a bigger teaching team. It is not straightforward. And I know that the University is full of people in the same function as me, trying to do these things as well.

I figured we were all inventing the wheel. And that shouldn't be necessary. So I asked the lady who often sends out request to join University panels if she knew who all the academic integrity officers in the University were, and if she could tell me. And she could! So I sent out a message to all of them (which is not as many as there should be; the paperwork showed three vacancies. I'm not sure how the schools that don't have an academic integrity officer deal with this sort of situation.) And I called an online meeting. I figured that we should start low-threshold. If we want, we can always meet more often, and do it in person if needs to be.

I already had been in touch with the academic integrity officers of the School of Environmental and Natural Sciences, and the school of Law, History and Social Sciences. The actual meeting only attracted one more school: Health Sciences. The lady who holds the academic integrity officer job there I still know from a Welsh course I did years ago. The three other invited people were unavailable. One at least explicitly asked to be kept in the loop, so we knew he was interested.

We had a chat about how we deal with our caseload. Do we have specific guidance to the staff, do we provide lectures to the students about what not to do? How do we document our cases? Do we have administrative support? How do you check if references are fake? Could we ask for more documentation of use of artificial intelligence?

It was an interesting discussion, and we decided to share the documentation we have. So I set up a shared folder where I put my lecture to all students, the guidance to all our staff, and my draft guidance to students of how to prepare for being invited to my office to discuss suspect case. Two of the other schools had already shared documents in the actual meeting, so I put these in there as well. And everybody got editing rights, so people can add more. The idea is that we can look at what the other schools are doing, and steal their best ideas.

We have decided to meet again before term starts again. I hope that if we use our combined brain power, this will make us better able to deal with this increasingly widespread issue. You could argue that we are running after the facts, but now at least we are running together now…

Grass success

In April I spread grass seeds on lawn I had reclaimed from ivy and other encroaching plants. That did precisely nothing. It has been too old! But then I was in a shop that sold grass seed in mid May, and just tried again.

I sometimes had a look at the grass was coming up yet. And generally, the answer was no. But then I left for five days, and that changed things.

When I came back I had a look in the garden and there was grass! It was still a little bit thin, but it was clearly grass. I will spread a bit more of the seed, and water if needed, if we have more dry days. I have faith that these bits of lawn will totally blend into the background in a matter of weeks! That feels good.

Veritable grass! 

Back to frantic marking

When I came back from our trip to the Netherlands, my working week only had three days left. And in these days, a lot needed to happen. By the Monday after, all marking of work by students who might be graduating this summer needed to be finalised. So that means that all dissertations had to be marked by two different people, and they would have had to agreed a mark by then too, and documented that mark. Exams had to have been marked and moderated. That is a lot!

I also have the other burden of being the academic integrity officer, and the module organiser for the dissertation module. And the first thing means I'm spending a lot of time meeting students under suspicion of cheating, and documenting these cases. The second one means that firstly, I have to set a good example, and secondly, I have to keep track of whether other people have done what they need to do, and kick them in the bum if they haven't. 

When I left, I had marked all the dissertations by my own students, but hadn't started yet on the dissertations by other people’s students. And I had marked one of the two exams. So now I needed to do that second marking, and second exam, in three days. And the agreeing marks. That was full on!

With the pressure I was glad I would have a race on Friday evening, so I didn't mind not going running in the hills on Thursday. I could just keep marking that evening. It was a bit sad that the house was, but didn't stay, really tidy; I had cleaned up for the cat sitter, and the cat sitter had cleaned up for me. But now I wasn't keeping that standard up. There was marking to be done.

I just managed to finish marking the second-last dissertation before I got into my car to go to the race on Friday. And I would be able to use the Monday for that last pesky one, and for trying to agree the last marks, and trying to get all the other staff to document their marks. That felt good! But I was a bit tired by then…

The rest of our Dutch trip

Including travel, Neil and I had five days away. We could do a bit more than the family day. On the first day we already did a bit of exploration of Amersfoort. We arrived in the late afternoon, and we decided to have dinner in town. It’s beautiful there! 

On our way to pick up the rental bikes. Pic by Neil

Our cabin seen from the front. Pic by Neil

The inside. Pic by Neil

On the Hof, with St George’s church in the background. Pic by Neil

On the first full day, we went to see Monique. Neil suggested we put our bikes on the train, and bike from Meppel. That sounded like fun! But I did require one thing: that the train would actually have space for our bicycles. The first train we tried did not. The second didn't either. It was a sunny Whitsun weekend! Everyone was out. 

We were fairly close to deciding to just park the bikes, and phone Monique to pick us up, when a third train actually would take us. And from then on all went smoothly.

I don't have a map of the Meppel area, so we just had to navigate on our phones. A lot of standing still and checking the route! I can't say we took. the most logical one. But we got there. It was a bit warm, but we were ok.

At Monique’s we mainly spend our time drinking tea and catching up. We had a bit of rehydration to do. Mike and Monique also thought it was a bit warm, so were quite happy to sit under the ceiling fan and not go on wild adventures. 

On the way back we found a more direct route. And we came past a cracking windmill! That was a nice bonus.
 

Neil and windmill

We wanted to see my mum that evening. We also needed food at some point. And Neil was curious about Indonesian food. And I figured we might combine these three things. There is an Indonesian takeaway right around my mum's corner, and I had never been. I love Indonesian food! So I proposed to him and my mum that we would just get some takeaway, and it eat at her place. She thought it was an excellent idea! But she didn't want to try any of it.

The advantage of eating it at my mum's place was as well that we could have a quick cold shower before dinner. After all the biking in the heat we sort of needed it.

We also had a (half) day in Amsterdam planned. But we did not want to spend all day there, so in the morning I first went for a run. You could run from our accommodation straight into the woods where I normally go for a run if I'm in the area. If I stay at my mum, I first I have to run for some 20 minutes to get there. Now I was in there instantly! And I ran a bit further east than normal, past the wind blown sands where my dad used to take us when we were small kids. 

At the Soestduinen wind blown sands

Neil went for a bike ride. I directed him towards the reclaimed land of Eemnes! And he loved it. He also went to an Amersfoort museum while I had some time together with my mum. Just the two of us. 

In Amsterdam I took him to Central Station, and then we walked past some interesting places to where I used to live in the Frans Halsstraat. And from there to Museum Square. And then back to Central Station, and then straight to the restaurant where we had agreed to meet Roelof. 

Posing (in the bright sun) with the Sluyswacht. Pic by Neil

 

Touristy picture on Leidseplein. Pic by Neil

Bitterballen with Roelof. Pic by Neil

On the day of travel we had time in the morning, so after getting up in checking out the first brought the higher bikes back, and then had it for a local cheese shop. The one on Muurhuizen had gone, but there still was one on the Langestraat. I don't think Neil has ever seen that much cheese. And then we had the last cup of coffee with my mum. 

Amersfoort cheese shop. Pic by Neil

 

Pic with some of my favourite people! Pic by Neil

As a last goodbye to Amersfoort we walked to the station via an ice cream parlour. It really was weather for that. And from there everything went smoothly again. No problems getting back to the UK, and no problems getting back to the Neil’s place. There I briefly said hi to his cat before I got into my car in order to go and see mine. And then the adventure was over!

This was the first time Neil and I travelled anywhere. We both decided it had been a great success! We had had a lovely time, and there had been no friction whatsoever. There had been moments where at least one of us I was getting a bit fragile because of the relentless heat, but we never took that out on each other. 

The customer is still young. We might get up to more things like that before autumn hits. I hope so!