Managing student academic misconduct cases can be challenging and frustrating for practitioners and faculty alike, and case resolution may come to an impasse with a student for no clear reason. When these issues arise, we often rely on mediation techniques from other disciplines. Neuroscience may be used to assist in mediation and is transferrable to the management of academic integrity cases. When practitioners and faculty approach academic misconduct with an open mind, they may find they resolve cases with understanding. The SCARF Model* and the Ladder of Inference** are two such theories.

The SCARF Model was popularized by David Rock in 2008. Rock argues that peop...

It was early in the Spring 2021 semester; COVID was raging across the United States, and most of us were working from home. As a remote worker (Assistant Director of the Office of Academic Integrity at the University at Buffalo), I regularly spoke to my Director and two graduate assistants, but as time went on, we were curious about what was happening out there on virtual college campuses in our region and across the world. We were also disheartened that no conferences would be in person, and we hadn’t seen our colleagues since the ICAI conference in Portland, Oregon in March 2020 (one week prior to the world shutting down). Within this context, we reached out to a few academic integrity connections in our home state of New York – would they be interested in meeting for a Zoom call?...

At the beginning of this semester, I went to a program orientation for new doctoral students at my university to speak about the university’s academic honesty policy. I had a rich discussion with the students about different cheating scenarios based on those that occurred at our institution, including the complexities of prohibited and permitted conduct. Upon concluding my presentation, I thought it went really well, and I was satisfied.

After the presentation, I was invited to have lunch with all students and the present faculty. As I stood in line with some students to grab lunch from the buffet, I began a conversation with two of them. They thanked me for the presentation and told me that now they are scared enough to be careful. I was a little surprised by this response. I...

Networking consortia within the ICAI connect people interested in academic integrity. “This networking activity stimulates the academic integrity movement in focused areas, while also enhancing the global movement.” The revitalization of Southeast region over the last three years began with assistance from institutions in Georgia and Florida, but the new initiatives from the Southeast Consortium hope to expand the group across the entire Southeast. One of these initiatives are the monthly Academic Integri-TEA Talks.

Southeast consortium members can grab their coffee or sweet tea and meet with other faculty and practitioners to talk collaboratively about issues they are facing in their classes and across their...

As many of us ready ourselves for the fall semester in the coming weeks, faculty are designing syllabi and students are anxiously mapping out daily schedules. Meanwhile, academic integrity practitioners are … wrapping up summer misconduct cases waiting for the fall breaches to roll in.

Instead of dwelling on the number of incoming cases, I am choosing to focus on the goals my office has to educate students on campus. Using the GOST method that my spouse uses to teach his students, I am creating goals for outreach. GOST breaks down goals into objectives, strategies, and tactics. Starting with the goal, this overarching, high-level conce...

Whether on a semester or trimester schedule, many faculty are refining course materials and syllabi at this time of year. I’m reminded of an earlier blog post Syllabus design with integrity in mind (August 2020) by Courtney Cullen offering food for thought embedding integrity in course specific ways. The course syllabus is the guiding document that sets the tone for how a course will run. With so many changes over the past few years, a reset and refresh are a welcome update for many courses.

While many institutions mandate an academic integrity or honesty statement, actively embedding academic int...

Pedagogic materials represent an ideal forum for promoting the importance of academic integrity as a central concept in higher education, and we recently welcomed the opportunity to reinforce knowledge and skills around academic integrity when developing an open textbook for university-level writing courses. The book, entitled Intermediate College Writing: Building and Practicing Mindful Writing Skills (Atkinson & Corbitt, 2022a), is available on the OER Commons (https://www.oercommons.org/courses/intermediate-college-writing-building-and-practicing-mindful-writing-skills) and Open Textbook Library (...

La pandemia trajo consigo grandes retos para la docencia. Súbitamente tuvimos que comenzar a impartir clases en línea luchando, muchas veces perdiendo la batalla, contra los dispositivos electrónicos para capturar la atención del estudiante y diseñar instrumentos que nos permitieran evaluar el aprendizaje en un ambiente donde toda la información se puede encontrar en internet y donde no existe la presencialidad que nos permitía “vigilar” que no se estuvieran cometiendo deshonestidades académicas. Fui testiga de colegas (y estudiantes) exhaustos después de exámenes en línea en los cuales se les obligaba a prender cámaras, abrir micrófonos y mostrar su entorno a través del video. ¿Es esta la mejor manera de asegurar  el aprendizaje con integridad académica? ¿Qué...

To the Parents of Students Accused of Academic Misconduct,

This is not how I wanted to meet you. I hoped your student would see me during orientation and would heed the honor code. I hoped they would join our office and participate in programing to encourage academic integrity on campus. I dream of a day when my job is no longer necessary, when students always make the ethical choice. But – alas – they did not. Now, we find ourselves in this situation. They’ve been accused of cheating, and you’re upset. I get it. But here are some things you should probably know before reaching out to us:

Se suele decir que el mal triunfa no por las personas que lo hacen, sino por la inactividad de las buenas personas. Es decir, por la falta de denuncia y de un posicionamiento claro. En este caso, la deshonestidad académica se instaura en una institución por la falta de denuncia y de una postura congruente de las personas honestas e íntegras. Pero esa falta de denuncia, muchas veces y casi me atrevería a afirmar que siempre, está ligada a una cultura de integridad y de denuncia de las injusticias. Una cultura de impunidad que incluso podemos ver socialmente y de la que todos en una u otra medida tenemos responsabilidad.

Por tanto, ¿cómo podemos impulsar un cambio cultural hacia una cultura de integridad? Para eso, hay que hacer un trabajo mucho más profundo que simplement...