Designing Assignments

Students may not know how to even get started with an assignment nor what it means to do their own work. A thoughtfully-designed and carefully explained project can help students understand the importance of engaging personally with their topic. Some assignments lend themselves particularly well to discussion of appropriate citation, for example, or handling of data, or even just time management. The following sections discuss some of the challenges and benefits to particular types of assignments with respect to academic integrity. 

The Harvard Writing Project
The Writing Project has an extensive collection of web-based resources for both faculty and instructional support staff who are interested in refining their teaching about writing. Of particular interest might be HarvardWrites, an interactive website created by the Harvard College Writing Program, the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, and the departments and schools represented therein. This resource provides students and teachers with valuable guidelines on structuring scholarly papers.  

Designing Courses with Academic Integrity: An Assignment Taxonomy 
The resources included in this section are drawn from an Assignment Taxonomy created in Summer 2013 by representatives from the Office of Undergraduate Education (Kate Stanton and Anne Marie Sousa), the Harvard Academic Technology Group (Annie Rota and Katie Vale), the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning (Terry Aladjem), the Harvard College Libraries (Odile Harter) and Louis Epstein, PhD 2013 in Music. We are also grateful to several faculty members who reviewed and commented on drafts of this material.