Fostering Academic Integrity by Moving past Penalties - Trust, but Verify

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

2. Implementing the Honor Policy at Cabrini College – A Historical Perspective Kimberly Boyd, Ph.D, Associate Professor Biology

3. Higher incidence of academic dishonesty Why was it time to “overhaul” Cabrini’s Academic Honesty Policy?

4. 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 Higher student expectations

5. 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 Cheating has become the “norm”

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

7. Dean for Academic Affairs Dean for Graduate and Professional Studies Other administrators Faculty Students Task Force on Academic Honesty organized in 2002

8. Student enforced honors code/pledge? Faculty-only honor boards? Faculty/student honor boards? Selecting the type of policy that would work for us.

9. To develop: Cabrini’s philosophy Definitions of academic dishonesty Penalty guidelines Disciplinary procedures Educating faculty and students Task Force Charges

10. Academic Honesty Board at Cabrini College Maria Elena Hallion, Ph.D Associate Professor Exercise Science/Health Promotion

11. 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 Members of the Board

12. 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 Functions of the Board

13. 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. Hearings of the Board

14. Annual presentations for new faculty Workshops for College Success classes Creation of Academic Integrity Curriculum Consistent distribution of policy statement Academic Honesty Board Upholds and Protects Academic Integrity

15. 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.

16. Trust, but Verify Jan W. Buzydlowski, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Information Science & Technology

17. Background Framework and Methodology Observations Overview

18. 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 Background

19. Consistent projects among different sections allow for undetectable cheating Problems • "I just read this"

20. Statistics Kim Almost anyone will cheat given the right circumstances Hartshorne & May Cheating in General • 1928

21. Is cheating more prevalent today? Electronic availability makes cut-and-paste easy Technology & Cheating • easier to cheat • easier to detect

22. Turnitin.com College has license WCopyfind U of VA Prof., Louis Bloomfield Current Solutions

23. 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 Problems with Current Solutions

24. None available Needs to fit in with College's Philosophy Needs to fit infrastructure of course Received Summer Faculty Development Grant 2006 Create a System from Scratch

25. Development of a statement of purpose to collect projects to be approved by Academic Affairs Obtainment of a physical data store to collect all student work Train for the use of the system Create a method to populate the data store from all of the faculty Develop software to extract information from the collected work Examine student work and report problems to the faculty involved TODO

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

27. Create a repository/Drop Box worked with ITR Repository accessible by full-time IST faculty Drop Box available to all IST 125 faculty Obtainment of a physical data store to collect all student work

28. 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. Training of the system

29. Weakest link Create a method to populate the data store from all of the faculty

30. System Information Systems Problem Software Information Science Problem Seeking Intersecting Oeuvre

31. 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 Development of software to extract information from the collected work

32. Observed (225 students / > 1,000 artifacts) usage time patterns Found near misses got a good talking to… smoking guns submitted to Academic Honesty Board What Was Learned

33. 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 Closing Thoughts

34. 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

35. 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 Resources (con't)

36. 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. Sources