ETHOS

Goodness is about character integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.

JUNE 2013

A Monthly Publication of the International Center for Academic Integrity Featuring Summaries of Integrity News + News from the Center

Quote of the Month

Cheating Epidemic?
The Denver Post

From the Director

If you attended this years conference, you already know that we are releasing a revised and revitalized edition of the Fundamental Values. If you werent with us, you can expect to find the familiar values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility, plus an additional quality: courage. When the Fundamental Values project was originally released in 1999, it included a list of institutions and organizations who expressed their support, including the Alliance for Higher Education, the College Board, the Kenan Institute for Ethics and many other associations and programs. This time, we want to allow our member institutions the opportunity to sign on as supporters if they so desire. We will accept letters of support (on institutional letterhead, please) through the end of September. As was the case last time, the list of supporters will be included in the final publication. A draft of the Fundamental Values is online here. Enjoy! http://www.academicintegrity.org/icai/r esources-2.php

~Dennis Prager

By: Dr. Michael Kerwin

06/02/13

As the uplifting strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" echo through the quads of
colleges and universities during graduation season, teary parents and ecstatic students celebrate a job well done. You know the story line: Hard work triumphs. We dutifully pass knowledge from one generation to the next. The phrase etched into the red sandstone of a soaring building at my alma mater, Colorado College, sets out our ideals: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." But look more closely at the professors and administrators in those quads and on those stages. Some may seem a little nervous, crossing their fingers behind those flowing gowns, hoping that every student truly earned a diploma. Unfortunately, stories of cheating are rife. One well-respected university unwittingly gave a master's degree with honors, no less to a student who paid thousands of dollars for the piece of paper. That student secretly confessed to a colleague of mine, Evangeline Litsa Mourelatos, an English professor at the American College of Greece in Athens. Through her work on academic integrity, Mourelatos tells this student's story so we will all know that cheating can happen even with apparent honor students and even in our own backyards. Around the world, many of us are caught in a perpetual game of cat and mouse. The reality is that cheating is out of hand. Paper mills have become ubiquitous. Do a simple Google search and dozens of sites will pop up. Their ads are brazen and alluring. They show cartoon drawings mocking the process and urging young people to fool their professors. Students sit lazily on couches surrounded by empty beer bottles while papers get written for them. The quality of the work ranges from comically poor to highly professional. You get what you pay for. Then there is the more subtle cheating. Students raised on computers have learned to "write" papers by getting a little information here and a little there. That's not so different from the dark ages when we copied straight from Encyclopedia Britannica. But by the time students are in high school, college and beyond, we want them to think for themselves, to be able to make coherent, original arguments.

~Teddi Fishman

Good students will find and properly credit multiple sources to come up with a salient point of view of their own. Others stay one step ahead of the software that we use to catch plagiarism by changing a few words here and a phrase or two there. They will open five sites at a time on their computer and take one sentence from Wikipedia, altering it just a bit, then one from the next site, and so on and so on. Some students think this is legitimate. We must teach them that it's not. Nearly 25 years ago, when I was in college, we took unproctored exams anywhere on or off campus. I signed my name with the phrase "Honor Code Upheld" on all assignments, tests and papers. I did this because those words mattered. We had a culture of trust on campus. I'm sure some students still cheated, but the overwhelming majority did not because every professor educated us about the school's honor code. We respected our obligations and felt like adults when we were given the responsibility to uphold the code whether we took an exam under a tree or in our dorm rooms. For the complete editorial, including Dr. Kerwins suggestions for strengthening honor codes and revamping assignments, please visit: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23361569/cheating-epidemic Dr. Michael W. Kerwin is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Denver. He is the co-chair of DU's Honor Code Advisory Council and recently was selected to join the executive board for the International Center for Academic Integrity. He collaborated on this piece with Katie Kerwin McCrimmon.

Announcements
6APCEI! Sydney, Australia October 2013

Madeline R. Conway 05/30/2013

Collboration Post-Gov 1310 TheCrimson.com

When teaching United States in the

World 26: Sex and the Citizen: Race, Gender, and Belonging in the United States this past spring, lecturer Caroline Light left little room for interpretation on what constituted appropriate and inappropriate collaboration. Light laid out guidelines during lecture, included a statement clearly outlining expectations on every assignment, and prominently featured her collaboration policies online.

The 6th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integritys Academic Staff Award for 2013!
The Asia Pacific Forum on Education Integrity (APFEI) is pleased to announce its academic staff award for 2013.

http://web.science.mq.edu.au/co nferences/6apcei/
___________________________________ We want your feedback! Visit our updated website and email comments, questions, and suggestions to: CAI-L@clemson.edu!

APFEI promotes and supports the highest standards of integrity in education and acknowledges the individual efforts of staff who champion academic integrity and take on actions that contribute to the transformation of She said there is a rising awareness, not their educational institutions. The just among students, but among faculty, of teaching award is a marvellous the importance of clear communication opportunity to acknowledge your around our expectations for our students. colleagues who put into practice ideas and innovations. Sometimes I just assume everybody
knows what plagiarism is, and I cant do that, she added. Light is one of many faculty members who have attempted to make their collaboration policies explicit in the wake of Harvards August announcement of a cheating scandal unprecedented in scope. Throughout the fall semester, the Administrative Board investigated roughly 125 undergraduates accused of inappropriately collaborating or plagiarizing on the spring 2012 final takehome exam in Government 1310. In the days following the announcement of the investigation, faculty questioned what impact heightened scrutiny of student work prompted by the scandal would have on the classroom. There was value, they said, in certain types of collaboration. The reason that [study guides] existed in the first place was that they were actually helpful to students, government professor Stephen D. Ansolabehere told The Crimson in August. Whats going to happen in chemistry when you cant take in some study guides that help you remember the periodic table? http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5/ 30/collaboration-post-gov-1310/

APFEI invites you to nominate colleagues who have fostered academic integrity by: developing resources developing policy taking action changing practices introducing /developing practices, or engaging others. Nominees do not have to be a member of APFEI to be eligible for this award, although they do need to be affiliated to an educational institution in the Asia Pacific region. The award will be presented at the 6th Asia-Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity (6APCEI) Wednesday 2 Friday 4, October 2013 Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia For nomination details, guidelines, award criteria and application forms, go to www.apfei.edu.au/award Nominations close: 31st August 2013 Contact: Julianne East j.east@latrobe.edu.au
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The International Center for Academic Integrity grants permission to duplicate and distribute this newsletter physically or electronically, so long as it is duplicated and/or distributed in its entirety and without alteration. Please note that this publication features summaries of and links to original works that are subject to copyright protection. ICAI does not claim ownership or credit for any original works found within. This publication is sponsored by:

Welcome new ICAI members June 2013!

Institutional Members Isidore Newman School Valencia College Lambton College
Ethos Staff: Aaron Monson: Writer / Editor Teddi Fishman: Executive Editor

CAI-L@clemson.edu