Policy Manual / 500 CURRICULUM
512 VCE Authentication / Council Meeting:
May 2002
Information: 0260761566 / DEECD Schools Reference Guide: Section 3 / Revised: May 2014
Manager: VCE Level Leader / Associated Policy: 511 VCE Policy / Issue No: 1.3
VCE AUTHENTICATION POLICY
RATIONALE
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has assumed responsibility for these areas.
AIMS
· Opportunities wherein students may seek to cheat or gain unfair advantage will be eliminated.
· Students will be able to undertake their studies secure in the knowledge that they are being treated fairly and equitably.
· The community value of students’ certification will be assured due to the application of quality assurance processes.
GUIDELINES
1. All staff and students will follow an authentication procedure for all Units 3/4 subjects at VCE level.
2. The Authentication Policy (inc. associated procedures) shall be published in the relevant Student Handbook.
3. It is the responsibility of each student to ensure that the teacher has no difficulty in authenticating their work.
4. Students should understand that teachers cannot authenticate work about which they have doubts and may not do so until further evidence to that effect is provided.
5. The Authentication Process is designed to ensure that all unacknowledged material submitted for Work Requirements, School Assessed Coursework and School Assessed Tasks is the work of the student.
6. Sanctions may be applied when it is established that there are breaches of College authentication rules.
IMPLEMENTATION
A. Rules and Procedures for Students
1. Students must ensure that all unacknowledged work submitted for work requirements and school-assessed tasks is genuinely their own work. This includes:
· text and source material;
· the name(s) and status of any person(s) who provided assistance and the type of assistance provided.
2. Students must not receive undue assistance from any other person in the preparation and submission of work. Acceptable levels of assistance include:
· the incorporation of ideas or material derived from other sources (eg. by reading, viewing or note-taking) but which has been transformed by the student and used in a new context;
· prompting and general advice from another person or source which leads to refinements and or self-correction.
3. Unacceptable forms of assistance include:
· use of, or copying of, another person’s work or other resources without acknowledgment;
· actual corrections or improvements made by another person.
4. Students must produce appropriate evidence of the development of the work requirement or task, from planning and drafting, through to the final piece of work. This will enable the teacher to monitor and record the development of the work and to attest that the work is the student’s own.
5. With the final copy of each SAC, students must submit evidence of the development of the assessment task, eg. a draft SAT. Written comments must have been provided by the teacher on the evidence. The evidence is to be dated and signed by the teacher and student.
6. Students who knowingly assist other students in a Breach of Rules may be penalised.
7. Students must not submit the same piece of work for completion of more than one work requirement.
8. Students must not submit the same piece of work for assessment for more than one SAT/ SAC.
9. Students must sign the Declaration of Authenticity at the time of submitting the completed task. This declaration states that all unacknowledged work is the student’s own.
B. Procedures for Suspected or Possible Breaches of Authentication
There will be instances where the authenticity of student work needs to be checked In particular, teachers must satisfy themselves about the authenticity of any student work that:
· is not typical of other work produced by the student;
· is inconsistent with the teacher’s knowledge of the student’s ability
· contains unacknowledged material;
· has not been sighted and monitored by the teacher during its development.
Teachers should not accept such work for assessment until sufficient evidence is available to show that the work is the student’s own. In such cases the onus is on the student provide evidence that the work submitted is the student’s own and completed in accordance with requirements.
In order to obtain the necessary evidence, students may be required to:
· provide evidence of the development of the work, eg. drafts which may not have been sighted by the teacher;
· discuss the content of the work with the teacher and answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the work;
· provide samples of other work;
· complete, under supervision, a supplementary assessment task (or test) related to the original task;
· attend an interview or complete a test to demonstrate his or her understanding of the work.
Any such interview or test will take place only after 24 hours notice. An interview panel will consist of the subject teacher and VCE Leader. If, as a result of the above procedures, part or all of the work cannot be authenticated, then the matter must be dealt with as a Breach of Authentication.
Should the school be satisfied, on the basis of evidence, that there has been a substantial Breach of Rules, then the Principal has the power to determine what action should be taken, as outlined below.
C. Sanctions for Breaches of Authentication
The Principal has the power to
· reprimand;
· call for resubmission if this can occur within dates designated by the VCAA;
· refuse to accept that part of the work which infringes the rules (with a consequent possible adjustment to S/N assessment or SAC grade;
· refuse to accept any of the work requirement or SAC (with a consequent N or NA).
If a decision is made to impose a penalty, the student must be notified within 14 days. This notification will include full reasons for the decision and advice about appeal rights.
D. Appeal
Students may appeal against the decision of the Principal on one or both of two grounds:
· that a breach of the rules set out in Section 1 by the student had not occurred;
· that the penalty imposed was too severe.
The student shall have the right of appeal to the Board of Studies against a decision not to authenticate work, only if plans or drafts of the work have been sighted during the period when the work requirement or the school-assessed CAT was being undertaken.
E. Appropriate Levels of Teacher Assistance
All changes made in the various stages of development of a work requirement or SAC must represent the student’s own work
It is appropriate in the developmental stages of the work for the teacher to ask questions and to offer general advice, eg. about alternative strategies that might be tried. However, the teacher should not dictate or make changes in such a way as to put into question the student’s authorship or ownership of the work.
Teachers’ written comments should be made on only one draft of each CAT. Where written comments are made, the draft containing the teacher’s comments must be initialled and dated by the teacher and attached to the piece of work that is finally submitted.
Teachers should distinguish between pointing out the areas in student work which require attention and development, and the responsibility of the student to act on that advice. The responsibility for acting on advice remains with the student.
Appropriate forms and levels of teacher assistance include:
· providing oral and/or written comments which identify the need for students to further explore their response to the topic and/or the link between what they have written and the assessment criteria for the SAC;
· highlighting areas requiring student attention; such as spelling, punctuation and vocabulary;
· asking students whether their choice of words is the best for conveying the intended meaning;
· asking questions about aspects of written text, seeking to clarify meaning or elaborate on detail.
F. Authentication of work requirements
Teachers must monitor the development of the work requirement by sighting plans and drafts of the student’s work, and keeping a formal record of the process. The teacher may consider it appropriate to ask the student to demonstrate his or her understanding of the work requirement at or about the time of submission of the work. The work will be accepted only if the teacher can attest that, to the best of his or her knowledge, all unacknowledged work is the student’s own. If the work requirement cannot authenticated, then the matter must be dealt with as a Breach of Rules.
G. Authentication of school-assessed SACs and SATs
In addition, teachers and students must also observe the following procedures for authenticating students’ SATs and SACs:
· Teachers must monitor and record each student’s development of the SAT or SAC, from planning and drafting through to completion. This requires regular sightings of the work by the teacher.
· Teachers are required to use the Authentication Record to record their monitoring of each student’s development of the SAC or SAT. The Authentication Record requires three recorded observations of individual work done on the SAC or SAT in class. The teacher and student must sign each recorded observation. The Authentication Record pro forma is provided as an attachment.
The teacher may consider it appropriate to ask the student to demonstrate his or her understanding of the task at or about the time of submission of the work. The work will be assessed only if the teacher can attest that, to the best of his or her knowledge, all unacknowledged work is the student’s own. The teacher must attest that, to the best of his or her knowledge, the work is the student’s own by completing and signing the declaration of Authenticity. If any part or all of the SAC or SAT cannot be authenticated, then the matter must be dealt with as a Breach of Rules.
ADDENDUM
The VCAA has the power to:
1. Call in a selection of SATs and SACs for authentication checks
2. Ask schools to review the authenticity of SACs and SATs where there is discrepancy between school assessed results, June exams and General Achievement Test results.
512 VCE Authentication Page 1 of 3 21/12/2005