{"id":25929,"date":"2026-05-14T22:45:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/?p=25929"},"modified":"2026-09-15T23:07:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T13:07:37","slug":"using-demonstrative-research-papers-to-coach-transparent-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/using-demonstrative-research-papers-to-coach-transparent-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Using ‘Demonstrative Research Papers’ to coach transparent scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recent challenges with open written assessments<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There has been an understandable focus on secure assessments lately, but not all assessments can be secured, and this presents challenges for written assessments. While working with the allowance of AI in ‘open’ assessments, it is a fraught business to discern the provenance of the writing<\/em> itself, but integrity must be upheld, and this is intrinsically bound up in the demonstration of a conscientious research process (the proverbial ‘iceberg’ that should be discernible beneath <\/em>the citational ‘tips’ in a submitted paper). As Young No<\/a> has discussed, the key academic skill is not coaching students to produce better references (where the functional transparency of integrity is often confused as a technical aesthetic), but coaching students to use evidence in a responsible way, showing how they have verified and evaluated the connections they are discussing. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key issues in written assessments concern the rise of faux citations that vaguely allude to sources without citing specific information, and inaccurate citations where incorrect page numbers are provided or “quotations” are seemingly invented or are paraphrases presented as “quotations”. There are also “hallucinations”, where a whole reference appears not only to have been invented and inserted in the reference list, but cited and sometimes “quoted” throughout the paper. Where such foibles and oversights are widespread in open written assessments, it suggests that many students are avoiding reading sources altogether, despite AI’s promise to economise the writing process which would notionally reserve more time for deeper studies.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When working with open assessments as tasks that specifically allow AI (because it would be impossible to restrict it), Corbin, Dawson, and Liu (2025) argue that rule-based guardrails alone can produce an “enforcement illusion” (pp. 1087-1088), and propose instead that a structural redesign of assessments is needed to help better assure that learning outcomes are being met. Gray et al. (2025) propose that rather than punitive policing of students’ uses of AI, assessments should be restructured with an aim to:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. enrich the assessment purpose<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. promote self-efficacy<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. increase the perceived cost of<\/span> diverting one’s learning (p. 2075).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Guided by these principles, we implemented a<\/span>n adaptation to our assessments by requiring students to append screenshots for every cited passage in their essays, promoting transparency and pride in careful research. This approach of using Demonstrative Research Papers (DRPs) was introduced in Semester 2 2025, with support from a SACE Education Grant. Students were asked to bank screenshots in an Appendix at the bottom of their essays, so the core essay task remained the same, but the coherency of orchestrating their ideas and scholarship could be observed, allowing tutors to provide more meaningful support and feedback. These DRPs could therefore be adapted to any existing written task without the need to change details in a published unit outline.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Implementing Demonstrative Research Papers<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The DRPs were implemented in a postgraduate Professional Writing unit with 420 enrolments after census, comprising a diverse cohort with over 90% international students. Three written assessments were scheduled:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n