Hi Will, Here at UCF we, too, have had cheating-on economies of scale. And after making the national news for one incident of massive cheating in a business course of hundreds of students, we have begun to make this something of a constant piece of our work, teaching and enforcing academic integrity.
One policy we have introduced, after full involvement of the student body and the faculty Senate, is the Z grade which indicates that the grade (even an A) was achieved with academic dishonesty. It can come off of the transcript, but only if: 1) The student attends a seminar on ethics and integrity taught by one of the philosophy faculty whose been doing this seminar for years now 2) The student has not already used the 2 grade forgiveness opportunities allotted for their whole time here 3) The faculty assigning the Z must remove it or forgive it You can see the policy here: http://integrity.sdes.ucf.edu/zgrade Of course, we also subscribe to turnitin.com as a tool to help us check for plagiarism, but this is only one piece of a larger effort. For example, we have an "incident report" that can be filed for any disciplinary problem, and the report is used for cheaters-and we as faculty can report for information purposes (and then there is a record and they check for other reports on the same person across their record), for information and ethics course, and then also we can initiate an investigation where the student must sit before a faculty-administration-student comprised panel (the students are the hardest to please and the most severe in their punishments against their peers). The prof who does the ethics course has learned a lot about student attitudes and their reasoning-one is that there are (some) differences of expectation between disciplines, so informing students up front at the beginning of each class what you consider plagiarism to look like is important. One student told her: "I did not cheat, that paper was mine-I am the one who paid for it." In considering policy for cheating it seems there are important considerations that often go unaddressed: * Untenured faculty often don't feel secure enough to report * Psychology of reporting: If the policy is "cheat and you are expelled" faculty will hesitate to ruin a whole career, and then often wont report, letting it continue unnoticed * Pedagogical need for students to learn the nuances of using material is substantial * This is not just a problem our students have, it's us too. For me, these issues of integrity resonate throughout the whole body politic-scientists fudging data that informs medicines and health, serious problems of accountability in professions critical for the maintenance of society, etc... (see Jane Jacob's The Coming Dark Age). And, educators themselves are the most likely (anecdotally) to cheat. See the shocking account of a shadow academic here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/ Anyway, sorry that was probably too many words for an email- we think seriously about it here though, otherwise the commercialized students who just think they are consumers would over-run us for their race to simply get credentialed and move on, without thinking about the nature of education and what it means to citizenship. Peter Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Political Science University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161356 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando, FL 32816-1356 Phone: (407) 823-2608<tel:%28407%29%20823-2608> Fax: (407) 823-0051<tel:%28407%29%20823-0051> Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D. View my CV, articles, teaching documents, etc... here: http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of William CG Burns Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 5:46 PM To: GEP-Ed List Subject: [gep-ed] Plagiarism Unfortunately, the submission of term papers at the end of the year in our program has come with a spate of plagiarism. While we have a small section on what constitutes plagiarism in our academic handbook, it's my belief that we need to develop a more detailed document that more clearly outlines what constitutes plagiarism, including examples. If any of our list members in academia have developed materials of this nature, or know of good sources that I can consult in constructing this document, I would be most appreciative if you could contact me. Thanks, and happy holidays to everyone. wil Dr. Wil Burns, Associate Director Master of Science - Energy Policy & Climate Program Johns Hopkins University 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Room 104J Washington, DC 20036 202.663.5976 (Office phone) 650.281.9126 (Mobile) [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://energy.jhu.edu SSRN site (selected publications): http://ssrn.com/author=240348 Skype ID: Wil.Burns Teaching Climate/Energy Law & Policy Blog: http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org<http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org/>
