Jan W. Buzydlowski, Ph.D. Maria Elena Hallion, Ph.D. Kimberly Boyd, Ph.D. Brian Scelzo Fostering Academic Integrity by Moving past Penalties - Trust, but.

Jan W. Buzydlowski, Ph.D.Maria Elena Hallion, Ph.D.

Kimberly Boyd, Ph.D.Brian Scelzo

Fostering Academic Integrity by Moving

past Penalties - Trust, but

Verify

Implementing the Honor Policy at Cabrini College – A

Historical Perspective

Kimberly Boyd, Ph.D, Associate Professor

Biology

Why was it time to “overhaul” Cabrini’s Academic Honesty Policy?

• Higher incidence of academic dishonesty

Higher student expectations

• CIRP data showed 45.7% of high school students graduated with an "A" average, while this number was only 17.8% 40 years ago.

• Students have come to expect high grades in college as well as a way of validating achievement and to meet their own expectations more have turned to academic dishonesty to earn the "A".

• Grades are more important than the acquisition of knowledge

Cheating has become the “norm”

• 70-76% of college students admit to some cheating (Newberger, 2003; McCabe, 2005)

• 40% admit to plagiarism (Rimer, 2003)– Internet plagiarism has risen from 10% in 1999 to

68%– 77% of those students believe it to only be a minor

offense

• 88% of college students believe their peers commit academic dishonesty

Why was it time to develop Cabrini’s Academic Honesty Policy?

• Higher incidence of academic dishonesty• Faculty enforcement had become lax and

inconsistent– 44% of faculty who have identified academic

dishonesty do not report the violation • Cabrini places high importance on developing

moral standards and values• Evidence suggested substantial decrease in

academic honesty violations in colleges with formal honor policies (McCabe, 2005)

Task Force on Academic Honesty organized in 2002

• Dean for Academic Affairs• Dean for Graduate and Professional

Studies• Other administrators• Faculty• Students

Selecting the type of policy that would work for us.

• Student enforced honors code/pledge?• Faculty-only honor boards?• Faculty/student honor boards?

Task Force Charges

• To develop: – Cabrini’s philosophy– Definitions of academic dishonesty– Penalty guidelines– Disciplinary procedures– Educating faculty and students

Academic Honesty Board at Cabrini College

Maria Elena Hallion, Ph.DAssociate Professor

Exercise Science/Health Promotion

Members of the Board

• Dean for Academic Affairs• 5 Faculty Members

– Elected, 2 year rotating terms

• 5 Full time undergraduate students– Selected by the Student Government

Association, 1 year term

Functions of the Board

• Critique and revise policies and procedures• Update faculty on board activities and hearings• Oversee the annual Academic Honesty Award

process• Preside over hearings of the Board

Hearings of the Board

• Hearings of the Academic Honesty Board can result from:– Student appeal of violation– Faculty request– Student’s second (or subsequent) violation

• Overview of hearing procedures• College-Level penalties for second or

subsequent offense of serious first offense.

Academic Honesty Board Upholds and

Protects Academic Integrity

• Annual presentations for new faculty• Workshops for College Success classes• Creation of Academic Integrity Curriculum• Consistent distribution of policy statement

Academic Policy Statement

The principal objective of the Cabrini College Academic Honesty Policy is to encourage a dynamic, open, and honest intellectual climate based on the personal and academic integrity of all members.  It is the responsibility of students to help maintain the community of academic integrity.  Students shall not receive credit for work that is not a product of their own efforts.  For a full description of the policy, please see the Academic Affairs homepage and follow the Academic Honesty link, or Pages 49-53 of the 2006-2007 Undergraduate Catalog. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: •Plagiarism •Cheating•Information falsification or fabrication•Facilitation of academic dishonesty

Students who cheat or plagiarize will receive a zero for the submission and a notice will be given and filed with the College’s Academic Affairs Office. A second offense will result in an “F” for the course and a second filing with the College’s Academic Affairs Office, which may result in expulsion from the College. This applied to both the student who submits the illegitimate work, as well as the student who provided that work.

Trust, but Verify

Jan W. Buzydlowski, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Information Science & Technology

Overview

• Background• Framework and Methodology• Observations

Background

• IST 125, Information Management Tools– Core Course– 15 Sections Fall 2006– Full-time and adjunct professors

• Ensure Quality and Consistency– Material and Assessment

• Common Projects

• Common Tests

Problems

• Consistent projects among different sections allow for undetectable cheating

–"I just read this"

Cheating in General

• Statistics– Kim

• Almost anyone will cheat given the right circumstances– Hartshorne & May

•1928

Technology & Cheating

• Is cheating more prevalent today?• Electronic availability makes cut-and-

paste easy–easier to cheat

–easier to detect

Current Solutions

• Turnitin.com– College has license

• WCopyfind– U of VA Prof., Louis Bloomfield

Problems with Current Solutions

• Turnitin.com– McGill Student fought the need to pre-submit– McLean H.S. feels impingement of IP

• IST 125 is – specific textual

• reports– non-Textual

• spreadsheets• PPTs• Databases

Create a System from Scratch

• None available• Needs to fit in with College's Philosophy• Needs to fit infrastructure of course

• Received Summer Faculty Development Grant 2006

TODO

1. Development of a statement of purpose to collect projects to be approved by Academic Affairs

2. Obtainment of a physical data store to collect all student work

3. Train for the use of the system 4. Create a method to populate the data store from

all of the faculty5. Develop software to extract information from the

collected work6. Examine student work and report problems to the

faculty involved

Development of a statement of purpose to collect projects to be approved by

Academic Affairs

• Developed with Drs. McCormick and Guerra• In addition to the statement encouraged by the

Academic Honesty Policy Board:

– Each IST125 project must be submitted electronically to WebCT for credit to be given. The electronic submissions are retained by the Dept. of Information Science and Technology, which reserves the right to use third-party plagiarism detection software (e.g., TurnItIn), as well as internally-developed techniques, to be applied during this as well as any future semester

Obtainment of a physical data store to collect all student work

• Create a repository/Drop Box• worked with ITR

– Repository• accessible by full-time IST faculty

– Drop Box• available to all IST 125 faculty

Training of the system

• Faculty– IST 125 Fall Meeting

• That it exists• Everything needs to be electronic• How to submit data

• Students– IST 125 First week

• Developed assignment to teach format, etc.

Create a method to populate the data store from all of the faculty

• Weakest link

Seeking Intersecting Oeuvre

• System– Information Systems Problem

• Software– Information Science Problem

Development of software to extract information from the collected work

• Microsoft Office– Proprietary format– Python scripts to extract

• n-grams from .doc and .htm• elements from .xls, .ppt, and .mds

– Database to compare similarities• SQL

What Was Learned

• Observed – (225 students / > 1,000 artifacts)– usage– time– patterns

• Found– near misses

• got a good talking to…– smoking guns

• submitted to Academic Honesty Board

Closing Thoughts

• You need to do this– unpleasant– no backup– unnecessary

• In the real world– Plagiarism on the Rise, CACM, June 2006

• "We now have a generation..who may not have been schooled in the ethical issues surrounding plagiarism."

– Cleaning up the Paper Trail, Science, 7 April 2006

Resources

• Cabrini College's Academic Honesty Page– http://www.cabrini.edu/default.aspx?pageid=680

• Ten Principles of Academic Integrity (McCabe and Pavela)– www.collegepubs.com/ref/10PrinAcaInteg.shtml

• The Center for Academic Integrity– www.academicintegrity.org

Resources (con't)

• The Institute for Global Ethics– www.globalethics.org

• The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education– www.cas.edu

• College and Character (John Templeton Foundation)– www.collegeandcharacter.org

Sources

• Boisvert, Ronald F., Irwin, Mary Jane, "Plagarism on the Rise," Communications of the ACM, June 2006, pp. 23 - 24.

• Couzin, Jennifer, Unger, Katherine, "Clearing Up the Paper Trail." Science, April 7, 2006, pp. 38 - 43.

• Callahan, David, "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead" Harcourt, 2004.

• Hartshorne, H. May, M.A., Studies in the Nature of Character. Volume I, Studies in Deceit, MacMillian, 1928.