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Academic Integrity: Some Ethical Issues. Academic Integrity Workshop University of San Diego January 26, 2005. Overview. Introduction What’s Wrong with Cheating? Three P’s of Academic Integrity A Culture of Integrity Expanding the Horizons Web resources. Introduction.
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Academic Integrity:Some Ethical Issues Academic Integrity Workshop University of San Diego January 26, 2005 ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Overview • Introduction • What’s Wrong with Cheating? • Three P’s of Academic Integrity • A Culture of Integrity • Expanding the Horizons • Web resources ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Introduction • My own involvement in: • The Fundamental Values project • Web-based plagiarism • Fundamental conviction: If students don’t learn integrity now, there’s no hope that they will learn it later—and the consequences are Enron, WorldCom, political misrepresentation, etc. ©Lawrence M. Hinman
What’s Wrong with Cheating Five approaches: • A Kantian analysis: not playing by the rules • A Consequentialist analysis: cheating hurts other people • A Virtues analysis: cheating as a violation of personal integrity • Feminist ethics: cheating as a violation of relationships • Multicultural ethics: cheating and cultural values ©Lawrence M. Hinman
A Kantian Analysis • Cheating is not playing by the rules • Understand cheating as a form of deception ©Lawrence M. Hinman
A Consequentialist Analysis • Cheating is wrong because it hurts other people (Bernie Gert) • Myth: cheaters only cheat themselves • Reality: cheaters often get ©Lawrence M. Hinman
A Virtues Approach • Virtues necessary for flourishing • Cheating is a weakness of character • Deception cuts us off from others ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Feminist Perspectives • No single feminist perspective, but certain distinctive themes • Cheating is a disruption of a relationship: • Between teacher and student • Among students • Between students and parents • The challenge: restoring the relationship ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Multicultural Perspectives • Conflicting values: honesty, loyalty, duty to parents • What counts as cheating in the U.S. might not be perceived in the same way in home country • Compare bribery • U.S. viewed as dominating country ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Before During After Three P’s of Academic Integrity The three P’s: • Prevention • Policing • Punishment Depends on point of intervention in the process: ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Prevention Better teaching • Cheating often arises in a vacuum • Good teaching reduces the likelihood of those vacuums Better exams and assignments • Individualized paper topics • Rough drafts, outlines, oral presentations of papers ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Policing • Proctoring exams • TurnItIn.com • Often effective • Similar to urine testing for athletes • High cost, and the costs don’t contribute to better teaching • Surveillance society ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Punishment • The challenge is to find ways of making punishment something that will help the offender. • Often, for the professor, the challenge is finding a way of staying connected with the student while still imposing punishment or reporting the offense. • Importance of reconciliation ©Lawrence M. Hinman
A Culture of Integrity • If we fail to establish an environment of integrity, it becomes reasonable for students to cheat. • We want to avoid a situation in which honest students are disadvantaged by their honesty and dishonest students get ahead. • Fundamental values: honesty, trust, respect, fairness, and responsibility, • Direct link between academic integrity and honesty in business and politics, where often lack of integrity seems the norm. ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Expanding the Definition of Academic Integrity All-too-easy to cast stones. We should look at ourselves, not just our students. Additional areas of concern: • Faculty model integrity for students • Fair grading and letters of recommendation • Treating students with respect • Establishing a climate of trust • Faculty violations of trust relationship with students • Responsible for excellence in course content • Faculty evaluations of each other for RRT • Academic misconduct by faculty • Downloading music on school networks • Favored treatment of athletes • Academic integrity in distance education • School administrators and teachers cheating to raise student scores in K-12 ©Lawrence M. Hinman
Web Resources This presentation: • http://ethics.sandiego.edu/presentations/USD/AcademicIntegrity2005/ Ethics Updates resources: • http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Resources/AcademicIntegrity/Index.html ©Lawrence M. Hinman