2022

Desde mediados del siglo pasado las instituciones de educación superior en América del Norte y Europa han desarrollado políticas de Integridad Académica y sistemas o protocolos para abordar casos de deshonestidad académica (Academic Misconduct Managment). Por su parte, no es hasta hace algunos años que universidades de Latinoamérica han comenzado a promover activamente los valores y herramientas de la Integridad Académica en sus instituciones. En la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, producto de buenas prácticas compartidas, nuestro primer paso fue la creación de un Código de Honor en el año 2016 que dio pie a la construcción colaborativa de una Política de Integridad Académica que comenzó a regir el año 2020 con el foco puesto en la formación y el aprendizaje.

En el proceso de implementación de la Política uno de los desafíos fue cómo abordar situaciones de faltas a la Integridad Académica manteniendo un sello formativo. Las universidades pioneras en esta temática se encontraban en tránsito desde modelos punitivos hacia la gestión de casos bajo un enfoque formativo (Möller, 2021) por lo tanto, siguiendo la misma línea adquirimos el desafío de evitar un modelo punitivo y con exceso de burocracia en favor de un modelo educativo centrado en la experiencia del estudiante (Sopcak y Hood, 2022).

En este contexto, el 2022 implementamos un nuevo protocolo para gestionar los casos de faltas a la Integridad Académica, buscando plasmar el sello formativo a lo largo de todas sus etapas. Algunos elementos fundamentales para el logro de los objetivos planteados fueron los siguientes:

  1. Creación de un protocolo con pasos claramente definidos, común a toda la universidad y conocido por todos. Con ello se busca otorgar mayor justicia y equidad al proceso.
  2. Conformación de comités de Integridad Académica en todas las facultades, a cargo de gestionar los casos sobre faltas a la Integridad Académica. Resulta crucial contar con organismos colegiados que aporten mayor objetividad al proceso desde una mirada más transversal.
  3. Incorporación de instancias formativas para el estudiantado en las distintas etapas del proceso. Entre éstas, destaca una entrevista con el foco puesto en la adquisición de aprendizajes y la elaboración de una carta que permita al estudiante realizar un ejercicio reflexivo en torno a la situación.
  4. Como parte de las consecuencias de los casos de faltas, sumado a la sistematización de medidas académicas, se incorporó la asignación de actividades formativas que el estudiante debe realizar para desarrollar habilidades que aporten a evitar futuras faltas a la Integridad Académica y fortalecer sus aprendizajes.
  5. Creación de un sistema institucional de registro de casos. Con ello se busca contar con datos que permitan orientar iniciativas futuras, enfocadas en la prevención.

Finalmente, lo que se busca con este enfoque es que el estudiante que comete una falta a la Integridad Académica sea capaz de reflexionar entorno a la situación, aprenda del proceso y adquiera herramientas que le sirvan para el futuro y así no vuelva a caer en una situación de deshonestidad académica. Por ello, resulta fundamental a lo largo de todas las etapas del protocolo, poner el foco en la importancia del comportamiento honesto como sello del aprendizaje.

Con la implementación del protocolo, hemos aprendido algunas cosas fundamentales que han aportado al buen funcionamiento de este y al logro de objetivos:

  1. Acompañamiento directo y constante a las Facultades es esencial. Es un protocolo nuevo y existen particularidades en cada una de las carreras. En nuestra experiencia, ha sido crucial contar con un equipo a nivel central que sirva de puente directo con las facultades. Así mismo, contar con canales de comunicación, recursos de apoyo y la realización periódica de talleres y charlas vinculadas a este tema.
  2. Involucrar al estudiantado. Concebirlos no como observadores, sino como partícipes activos. En este sentido, fueron parte fundamental para la validación del protocolo y también se creó el rol de “estudiantes orientadores” quienes pueden acompañar a estudiantes que se encuentren en un proceso de gestión de faltas a la Integridad Académica, otorgándoles información y asesoría. El apoyo entre pares es fundamental.
  3. Desarrollo de estrategias formativas permanentes tanto para estudiantes como profesores. Dada la naturaleza de las instituciones de educación superior los estudiantes se renuevan año a año por lo que avanzar en la promoción de los valores que nos orientan como universidad debe ser constante. Así mismo, el profesor es quien se relaciona día a día de manera directa con el estudiantado, por lo que es importante entregar herramientas que aporten a que desde la sala de clases se promuevan los valores que sustentan la Integridad Académica.

Estamos comenzando con la implementación de este protocolo, por lo que es un proceso de aprendizaje constante. Pero el hecho de contar con criterios comunes y transversales, además del involucramiento de los diversos estamentos de la comunidad universitaria han sido un buen puntapié inicial.

Referencias:

Möller, A. (2022). An analysis of university academic integrity policies in New Zealand. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 1, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2022.2130195

Sopcak, P., & Hood, K. (2022). Building a Culture of Restorative Practice and Restorative Responses to Academic Misconduct. En S. E. Eaton & J. Christensen Hughes (Eds.), Academic Integrity in Canada: An Enduring and Essential Challenge (pp. 553-571). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_29

Remember the moment when, in March 2020, the COVID pandemic forced universities across the country to suddenly switch to remote instruction? At University of California San Diego, we had to pivot right in the middle of our last week of classes, before the Winter finals, because we run on the quarter system. Few of us had a well-tested strategy for remote exams and even fewer really knew what to expect. As we scrambled, a student in one of our classes, whose performance at that point had been stellar, expressed concern that others in the class might cheat. She was afraid that cheating would break the curve. Surveys showed she was not alone in this fear. And, like most instructors, we also shared the concern for maintaining a high standard of academic integrity. While we followed suggested guidelines, such as using pools of questions, we each independently took the additional step of adding oral follow-up exams to our courses. The idea was simple: due to the adaptive nature of oral exams, we would have the opportunity to ask probing questions to see how much students really understood their answers.

We each implemented slight variations on this idea, but the broad strokes were the same. One of us only followed up with a few students, whose final exam performances were markedly different from how they did on the midterm. One of us administered a 15-minute oral exam to all 150 students, with the help of three Teaching Assistants (TAs). This approach brought additional challenges of training the TAs to ensure that the oral exams would be consistent and fair, as well as the sheer task of each doing 8 to 10 hours of exams. Despite these differences in the scope of our oral exams, both of us noticed similar trends and serendipitous outcomes. 

Importantly, students reported that they believed the oral exams strengthened the academic integrity of the course. This belief itself is valuable in reducing the perceived need to cheat to keep up with everyone else. In terms of the actual detection of violations, there were instances where students could not explain their written answers. Upon further probing, we found that some of these cases did involve academic misconduct. However, in other cases, the issue was that the students’ learning strategy had been focused on mere memorization of processes and recipes; and this lack of conceptual understanding was laid bare by the unique interrogative nature of oral exams. On the flip side, there were students who actually did markedly better on the oral exam compared to the written one. From follow-up surveys, we learned that some students had reviewed material in more depth because they felt a one-on-one oral exam was intimidating. For others, the oral exam modality, which lets them explain their thinking, simply suited them more. These observations were somewhat eye-opening, and encouraged us to consider oral exams beyond this initial trial. We asked ourselves: could we use oral exams not only to support academic integrity, but also for these other pedagogical benefits that had emerged?

We decided to explore this question. However, we needed to address an issue that had also come up in our surveys: honest students felt mistrusted. Going forward, we would therefore pitch the oral exam as a learning opportunity instead of a policing strategy. We believed that this more constructive view could still serve the original academic integrity goal, while also delivering the additional pedagogical benefits we had observed.

Fortunately, other engineering faculty on campus had considered similar interventions, and together we quickly started brainstorming ideas. We would implement variations of oral exams in our future courses to study what was most effective, how we could overcome the issues of large class sizes and examiner inconsistency, and how we could replicate the benefits we found earlier. Expanding our group with pedagogical researchers from across campus, we embarked on this research, for which we received a three-year NSF grant in January 2021. 

Since starting this collaboration, our team has implemented oral exams in 32 classes, covering 9 distinct electrical and mechanical engineering courses. Working with instructional teams has been instrumental in successfully administering oral exams. From our experience, a ratio of one

instructor or TA to 30 students seems to be the maximum ratio for implementation. Throughout this process, our research evolved to consider exam variations and to explore how they help students identify their strengths and weaknesses, lower the barrier to seek help, provide additional touch points for instructors and encourage students to pursue conceptual understanding. In a way, we are now also contributing to integrity through a different lens: if we can better support students in their learning and give them the tools and confidence to succeed, they are less likely to feel the need to resort to dishonest means. 

We have moved away from seeing oral exams as a way to catch cheaters and are exploring their use as a much richer tool in our courses. Still, the impression among students that we started from persists – they report in surveys to perceive oral exams as positively contributing to academic integrity in the course. This impression has a known positive impact on actual integrity, as it reduces “having to cheat to keep up” as a driver, which should not be underestimated.

Now should you implement oral exams in your courses solely for reasons of academic integrity? We would say “not necessarily”, as they are fairly labor-intensive. Nevertheless, we are discovering that, with the other benefits we mentioned, they are a useful tool in our arsenal. And they are also a tool that actively champions academic integrity, both by supporting students’ learning and improving the perception of integrity in the course.

For more information about our research studying oral exams, please check out our website https://huqi31.wixsite.com/ucsdoralexam.

Acknowledgements:

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2044472. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The rest of our research project team members are: Dr. Nathan Delson, Dr. Marko Lubarda, Dr. Carolyn Sandoval, Dr. Saharnaz Baghdadchi, Joanna Boval, Xuan Gedney, Dr. Maziar Ghazinejad, Dr. Minju Kim, Dr. Leah Klement, Leo Liu, Dr. Mia Minnes, Dr. Alex Phan, Dr. Celeste Pilegard, Dr. Josephine Relaford-Doyle and Tony Wang.

As researchers and practitioners of academic integrity, we often find ourselves in a reactionary position, redressing situations that severely impact courses, institutions, and morale. Research on proactive efforts is essential in redefining what is possible in policy and efforts to improve practice. Measures to address these inclusively are especially significant. Academic communities are more diverse than ever, and comprehensive policies that consider learning differences, cultural values, and universal design still need to be improved. Intellectual integrity demands inclusive practice.

Dr. Mary Davis, who is in the unique position of studying inclusivity in academic integrity, conducted a study while actively informing the change she hopes to see on her campus. 

Dr. Davis

In her role as Academic Integrity Lead and Principal Lecturer for the Student Experience in the Business School at Oxford Brookes University, Dr. Davis addresses gaps in research with opportunities to engage in policy change with multiple constituencies. She recently wrote about her experiences with university-level policy change in the International Journal of Educational Integrity. Her article, Examining and improving inclusive practice in institutional academic integrity policies, procedures, teaching, and support, challenges institutional partners to expand expectations of an inclusive approach to academic integrity policy design. Her case study included students, staff, faculty, and university administrators, a review of policy documents, and a thematic review of the steps, challenges, and outcomes of the inquiry, development, and implementation of the policy. This work is ongoing but offers practical considerations for higher education more broadly. 

Inclusive policy change

I was fortunate to discuss the case with Dr. Davis in detail. Here are some of my biggest takeaways:

This study emerged from a recognized “lack of inclusion in academic integrity.” Dr. Davis notes disproportionate outcomes for underrepresented populations, despite the value we find in diverse student populations.

“What has been particularly noticeable has been the over-representation of certain groups of students in academic conduct investigations… My goal has been to raise awareness within my institution and make changes to the policy in my institution (which I achieved), but I also want to raise awareness more widely for institutions and staff elsewhere involved in academic integrity policies and practice and help them see that changes are needed and possible to implement.”

Universities are changing, and academic integrity policies should be responsive to these changes. Dr. Davis frames the study in response to increasingly necessary practices mindful of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Her goal was “to examine the perspectives of all of the stakeholders in academic integrity to discuss inclusion, as well as examine policies under the same lens.” She notes the considerations made across higher education institutions in response. Despite this, a gap remains in our policy language. While many argue that integrity is a straightforward concept, prior research reminds us that there are differences in understanding and applying academic integrity.

Critical Considerations

Policies often represent legal requirements, cultural norms, and negotiated terms. When refining policy, opinions are as varied as experiences. Time, experience, role, and consequence significantly impact how changes are received. This was evident in the article. Despite this, many find comfort in tradition; staff may feel like they are letting go of familiar things, assigning comfort to traditional processes. Dr. Davis describes these challenges, stating that

institutions and staff need to agree to what academic integrity is, what breaches are (policy), then agree about what is taught, making sure it is available to all, and also ensuring support is available to all students, especially those who may be disadvantaged. 

An overreliance on legal language is work Dr. Davis’ seeks to address; she very strongly emphasized “that judgement should be left out of policies and legal terms should not be used as they magnify academic conduct breaches and make students feel like lawbreakers that do not belong in the system.” 

Staff and Student Voice

While much is made of issues that threaten success, policy change requires care and nuance for all participants, including those with institutional memory of past practices. Policymakers should be careful not to label the past practice as simply inadequate or harmful but as a basis for refinement based on new knowledge and context. Dr. Davis’ meaningful professional relationships with varied stakeholders, her longstanding tenure in her roles, and her continuing commitment to her research agenda have benefits. The article includes direct quotes and honesty not always seen in policy studies. 

The student context is an exciting element of this study. Dr. Davis captured the experiences of students who had gone through the process yet had time and space to reflect on the experience. Students commented on the stress and anxiety they experience in understanding academic integrity policies. The legal and punitive language suggested that academic integrity borders on the criminal. This data was supported by staff who work with this population. Their experiences and plans for improvement offer opportunity and clarity. Prior changes to the policy do not appear to be consistent in this study, evidenced by inconsistencies in guidance documents. This presents compliance and interpretation concerns. The findings prompted the policy change. First-time breaches of the policy are met with ongoing educational responses instead of punitive responses.

Education First

Inclusive education is the overarching goal and measure of success in this case study. Another innovation includes an analysis of policy documents using the comprehension guidance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Dr. Davis identifies opportunities for change, also supported by staff feedback. Findings indicate that issues contributing to confusion and anxiety include language, information processing, inconsistent documents, and unhelpful layouts. As a result, policy changes included adjustments to internal and external documents and communications.

Dr. Davis reminds us that change is not immediate, and that academic integrity policy change is a process that requires intention, relationship, and readiness. Fortunately, the staff at Oxford Brookes University are open to change and critical reflection. As Dr. Davis notes, to be inclusive, more education is needed for students, and a move away from investigations and punishment, especially with minor breaches.

 

Want to read the article? Use this citation:

Davis, M. (2022). Examining and improving inclusive practice in institutional academic integrity policies, procedures, teaching and support. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 18(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-022-00108-x

I believe that one of the main motivations of those of us who are concerned about promoting academic integrity, has to do with the commitment to graduate excellent professionals from our universities, that is, technically efficient and ethically responsible people, capable of responding with moral conscience to the great challenges of our time.

Currently, one of these challenges is represented by corruption. The Corruption Perception Index 2021 of Transparency International indicates that the levels of corruption in the world have stagnated in the last 10 years, with the global average score being 43 points, where 100 is zero corruption and two thirds of the countries do not reach 50. It also indicates that in several of the countries where it has deepened, there is a deterioration of democracy and respect for human rights (2021 Corruption Perceptions Index reveals a decade… - Transparency.org).

In general, the fight against corruption focuses on the design of mechanisms for prevention, inspection, control, detection and punishment of illicit actions, as well as abuse of power. The contribution that we can make from education to combat this situation has to do, without a doubt, with the formation of upright professionals. People who, as the International Center for Academic Integrity points out, are capable of making ethical decisions in difficult situations, and who learn to do so from their university experience, with the study of academic integrity.

At Tecnológico de Monterrey, in addition to the launch of our Academic Integrity Program, we conceive integrity as a transversal competence that must be intentionally developed from the curriculum. The competency-based education approach, promoted by the Organization for Cooperation in Economic Development (OECD) and the Tuning Project since the 1990s, recognizes the importance of developing ethical capacities, in terms of attitudes, values, knowledge and skills, which allow future graduates to respond in a comprehensive, appropriate, and ethical manner to the challenges they will face as professional. (Tobon, 2013).

Considering integrity in terms of a competence has implied for us, defining, on the one hand, the knowledge, skills and attitudes that we want to promote in the student body, and on the other hand, designing learning strategies that develop the necessary moral sensitivity in our students to value the importance of integrity in their daily life, and the motivation to act in accordance with this principle, generating proposals with quality and justice, in accordance with the needs of the society.

Seen as a competence, we conceive integrity as: "the ability to resolve situations in academic, professional and social life, by complying with laws, regulations and ethical principles." (Tecnologico de Monterrey, 2019: 47-50). In order to assess the development level of this competence in a student, we established, through a process of theoretical foundation and qualitative analysis, a set of indicators. Some of them are the ability to:

  1. Recognize the personal and social implications of dishonesty and corruption.
  2. Reflect from ethical theories on the sense and significance of issues related to integrity, honesty, trust and justice in relation to a context.
  3. Carry out activities and projects without harming others.
  4. Know the corresponding regulations to the academic and professional activities carried out.
  5. Identify the social purposes of their profession, analyze them and be able to reflect on them, etc.

To work on this competence, we design learning situations that respond to four dimensions of moral development: 1. Awareness, where our students learn to identify situations that put integrity at risk and their consequences. 2. Understanding the meaning of integrity and the importance of learning to make decisions from this perspective. 3. Motivation, related to the ability to prioritize the values of integrity when making decisions, and 4. Action aimed at satisfying the social needs served by the profession (Ayala, E. and Gallego, D., 2019: 139–147; Rest. J. 1994: 1-25).

Thus, we have built a strategy that addresses the teaching of integrity from a double intervention: The Academic Integrity Program and its implications for institutional design, and integrity conceived as a transversal competence, developed from the curriculum in some specific learning experiences. With this approach we hope to contribute to the training of responsible professionals, who from the public or private organizations in which they are going to carry out their work, are able to denormalize fraud, cheating, lies and deceit, and to contribute to the strengthening of democratic life from any of its institutions.

Bibliography:

Ayala, E. y Gallego, D. (2019). “Propuesta educativa para la formación ética y ciudadana en el nuevo modelo educativo del Tecnológico de Monterrey”. En González, E., Siurana, J., López, J. García, M. Ética y democracia desde la razón cordial, pp. 139-147.

OCDE. (2001). Defining and selecting key competencies.  Rychen D.S. & Salganik L.H. (Eds.).Recuperada  desde: https://www.deseco.ch/bfs/deseco/en/index/03/02.parsys.78532.downloadList.94248.DownloadFile.tmp/2005.dscexecutivesummary.sp.pdf

Rest, J. (1994), “Theory and Research”, in Rest, J. y Narvaez, D. (Ed)., Moral Development in the Professions, Psychology and Applied Ethics, Psychology Press, New Jersey, pp. 1-25.

Tecnológico de Monterrey (2019). Competencias transversales. Documento guía para el docente de educación superior. Monterrey. México.

Tobón, S. (2013). Formación integral y competencias, pensamiento complejo, currículo, didáctica y evaluación. Bogotá. Ecoe. Recuperado desde: https://cife.edu.mx/recursos/2019/12/04/formacion-integral-y-competencias-pensamiento-complejo-curriculo-didactica-y-evaluacion/

A global planning/advisory team co-led by Amanda McKenzie, University of Waterloo (CA) and Azalea Hulbert, University of West Virginia, US, consisting of the following members worked together over the past 8 months to coordinate plans to mark the IDoA:

 

  • Stephen Bunbury, University of Westminster, UK
  • Mary Davis, Oxford Brookes University, UK
  • Lucía del Carmen Córdova Rivera, University of Monterrey, MX
  • Irene Glendinning, Coventry University, UK
  • Luz Herlinda Godina Silva, University of Monterrey, MX
  • Zeenath Khan, University of Wollongong Dubai, AE
  • Thomas Lancaster, Imperial College London, UK 
  • Jennie Miron, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, CA
  • Evangeline Litsa Mourelatos, Deree, the American College of Greece (retired), GR

Two sub-groups were created: one for Faculty (co-led by Mary Davis & Irene Glendinning) and one for Students (co-led by Stephen Bunbury & Jennie Miron). There was strong participation in both of these groups. In fact, many volunteers expressed interest in continuing to be involved after the IDoA. Special mention goes to University of Dundee student, Louise Warburton, for her tremendous efforts to adapt an academic integrity escape room to the IDoA, and to demonstrate this game on October 19th. Her enthusiasm for the escape room and work in academic integrity was infectious! 

In total, six web events took place. Two pre-events were held on Oct 5th, and four web events took place at various times on Oct 19th. A full list of contributors as well as links to the videos of these events can be found here.

A diverse and impressive representation of countries from around the world (e.g.,Oman, Egypt, UAE, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Romania etc.) registered to show their support for the IDoA. 

A student TikTok contest was held to help build awareness of the day and the importance of academic integrity. There were over 25 submissions and some TikToks had an astounding 50,000+ views! Shout out to Mississippi State University (@msstate #Mississippistate) who took this competition to heart and had the majority of contest submissions. Contest winners will be announced by November 2, 2022. Stay tuned!!! 

The planning/advisory group will meet to debrief and discuss plans for 2023, which includes a name change. Contract Cheating will be removed and an emphasis on integrity and ethics will be adopted. Volunteers are always welcome to join this work for 2023, just reach out to  

October 19 2022 marks the International Day of Action against Contract Cheating, an event organised by ICAI which is running for the 7th time. I first wrote about and presented on contract cheating in 2006. Even though I’m always pleased to see the continual interest in this area and the many great initiatives that are being used to tackle contract cheating, it’s also a shame that this type of academic misconduct is still so prevalent.

As I often argue in talks and academic research, we need to address contract cheating in multiple ways. Awareness raising and work with students is of vital importance. I’ve done a lot of work myself on making assessment engaging for students and in looking for opportunities to make contract cheating less valuable to students. We continue to have some detection technology available to support us too.

Perhaps one place in which the international higher education sector is falling behind is with their regulatory response.

On a national level, some Governments have introduced legislation designed to make offering contract cheating services illegal. In 2022, England passed laws to ban commercial contract cheating providers from operating, although these laws do not cover the other constituent countries of the United Kingdom, namely Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Importantly, the laws do not criminalise students. Similar laws exist in other countries, including Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Montenegro, as well as in some states in the U.S.

It is hard to judge how successful legislative approaches have been. On the one hand, they are important as they send a strong message to students that they are using an inappropriate service. They make it difficult for online sites to carry advertising for contract cheating services. But at the same time, sites can operate outside the banned country. Students are still finding contract cheating providers. And within England, where I am based, contract cheating providers are certainly still operating. They also have the option to move to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, from where they could approach students in England.

Where then do regulatory approaches come into play within universities themselves?

Simply put, universities need to make sure that contract cheating is defined in their policies, procedures and regulations, that there is a process to follow when contract cheating is suspected, that the level of proof required is stated, and that penalties are listed that are fair and consistent. Contract cheating can’t just be considered as another type of plagiarism if it is to be taken seriously as an academic threat.

Academic policies have to be agile. That is, it should be possible to update them as new knowledge about contract cheating emerges or new threats to academic integrity become known. Too many policies are only updated on a multi-year cycle, meaning that the information contained within them is continually out of date.

Policies need to be written in such a way that they are accessible to students. Legal language is beyond the comprehension of many, especially students whooften lack the incentive to read it.

Policies also have to consider difficult issues related to contract cheating. How, for example, should a university react if a student is detected having paid for answers but the student claims those answers were never submitted? What is a student wrote an initial draft of work, but this was subsequently altered by a paid copy editor, so the final version is not all by the student? What happens if a student outsources computer code, rather than text? There are all kinds of challenges there and all of these are based on real world examples.

A further question asks, what if a student who has already graduated completes work for a current student? Should the graduated student have their qualification rescinded? What if this takes place in a country where providing paid contract cheating services is illegal? Is it then the responsibility of the university to prosecute the graduated student? Should the evidence be turned over to the police as a criminal manner?

As part of the activity surrounding the International Day of Action against Contract Cheating, I encourage you to investigate matters like these directly within your university. Find out when policies surrounding academic integrity and contract cheating were last updated and how you can help ensure they are complete and up to date. Check how far students are involved in the construction of these policies. Ask how difficult questions would be addressed at your institution under the current policies.

But ultimately, please don’t assume that any approach to reducing contract cheating is the only one, the right one or the correct one. It can be argued that legal, procedural and regulatory approaches are essential, but they cannot work in isolation. Do use the International Day of Action against Contract Cheating to continue to raise awareness. Even if you’re not directly participating as part of an institution, do join the live broadcasts that ICAI are supporting. And do support the move to help students to #excelwithintegrity and to value working on #myownwork.

The McCabe-ICAI Faculty Survey team is proud to announce that the revised faculty survey is ready to begin pilot testing! As a core group of committed ICAI members, we convened after the Portland conference in spring 2020 and were ultimately charged with updating McCabe’s original survey instrument to ensure data collected would remain useful for both scholars to use in research and for institutions to use in assessment. Beyond this initial core group, ICAI members from institutions around the world have helped revise our instrument and provided valuable feedback. 

Our revised instrument was first introduced at the ICAI virtual conference in spring 2021, with an update given in spring 2022. Both sessions included extensive participant interaction and feedback, which resulted in the development of the open-ended questions for the survey and a heightened focus on curriculum and pedagogy (two innovations to the instrument from what McCabe designed). Further revisions were made in consultation with the literature, as well as with leading scholar-practitioners in academic integrity, teaching and learning, and institutional assessment. 

Our survey is approved by the IRB at Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL) and has been determined exempt by the IRB at University of Rochester (Rochester, NY). Institutions that wish to administer the faculty survey will be asked to verify approval through their own IRBs; supporting documentation is available on ICAI’s website, in the McCabe-ICAI Faculty Survey partner manual, and from members of the research team.

Importantly, our survey is designed to complement the already revised McCabe-ICAI Student Survey and the Academic Integrity Rating System (AIRS) 2.0. While in pilot/validation phase, the faculty survey remains free to administer for institutional members of ICAI. It may be given in conjunction with the revised student survey, with AIRS 2.0, or with both. By adopting all three tools, simultaneously or over time, institutions can access a powerful package of data that compares to a national sample (useful for better understanding and assessing their own campus climates of honesty and integrity).

If you are interested in having your institution participate in faculty survey validation, or if you want to get involved in ICAI research and assessment activities more broadly, visit our page on ICAI’s website or email our team: .

In educating stakeholders about academic integrity and implementing strategies to prevent academic misconduct, those working in higher education can take a proactive, positive, educative, and supportive approach. Academic misconduct will still occur, however, requiring the careful identification of potential academic misconduct and administration of related procedures and policies.

What can and should be done when patterns of misconduct are observed in a particular class or assessment (Rogerson, 2017), and by whom? Are there ways in which the roles of those working in colleges and universities are interrelated in regards to academic integrity, and could provide the basis for beneficial partnerships (Ellis et al., 2022)?

Join the multidisciplinary Learning Commons team for an interactive session where academic integrity is anchored in teaching and learning (Bertram Gallant, 2016). Participants will leave this session with clear, research and evidence-based examples of opportunities for addressing academic misconduct holistically in several college and university roles.

Learning outcomes:

  • Describe academic strategies which reduce avenues for misconduct
  • Identify indicators of potential academic misconduct
  • Prepare updated assessment based on your class experience

Presenters: Lynn Cliplef (Faculty Development Coach), Mitchell Hengen (Faculty Development Coach), Caitlin Munn (Quality Assurance Specialist), and Josh Seeland (Manager, Library Services).

Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM (CST)

Platform: Zoom

Registration form: click here

References

Bertram Gallant, T. (2016). Leveraging institutional integrity for the betterment of education. In Bretag, T. (Ed.). Handbook of academic integrity. Springer.​

Ellis, C., Rogerson, A. M., House, D., & Murdoch, K. (2022). “(Im)possible to prove”: Formalising academic judgement evidence in contract cheating cases using bibliographic forensics. In S. E. Eaton, G. Curtis, B. M. Stoesz, K. Rundle, J. Clare, & J. Seeland (Eds.), Contract cheating in higher education: Global perspectives on theory, practice, and policy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Rogerson, A.M. (2017). Detecting contract cheating in essay and report submissions: process, patterns, clues, and conversations, International Journal for Educational Integrity, 13(10).

En mis clases, las evaluaciones son ese elemento que siempre está en proceso de construcción, reconstrucción y destrucción. El ¿qué espero del aprendizaje en mis clases?, se mezcla con la más prosaica, ¿cuántas personas están inscritas en la clase? Un equilibrio donde a veces ese deseo cualitativo con dejo formativo se vuelve impracticable. Antes del inicio de cada semestre me siento frente a la computadora con la duda existencial de si mis herramientas de evaluación ofrecen lo necesario, de cuántas evaluaciones por semestre necesito, sobre qué tipo de evaluaciones son más adecuadas, y la más grave de todas: ¿examinar o no examinar? También ronda en mi cabeza esa idea de “este semestre voy a dejarlas igual” que siempre termina abandonada. Los cambios obedecían a una constante en mis evaluaciones, el control.

Entonces llegó la pandemia y todo cambió.  Ya no era una duda existencial, era una necesidad que partió de algo que se ha discutido en los sistemas educativos virtuales desde siempre y que no fue tarea fácil, dejar ir el control. La idea habitual de los exámenes implica un control absoluto de todas las variables. Controlas en ambiente porque estás en un salón, controlas el sonido, controlas el uso de material, controlas el uso de tecnología, controlas incluso el movimiento de los cuerpos… y entonces me di cuenta que entre más control buscaba, más lo alejaba, y para ganarlo debía incrementar el estrés, mío y de mis estudiantes. Quizá porque mi personalidad no empata con la imposibilidad de controlar las cosas, quizá porque el pragmatismo me veía desde una esquina con cara de fastidio.

Hay cosas que no se pueden controlar sin convertir las evaluaciones en un panóptico foucaultiano y eso era lo que menos quería. Mi universidad apostó por una forma de online proctoring que nunca he usado. Con los niveles de estrés y ansiedad que atravesamos en 2020 y 2021, sumar un estrés adicional a mis estudiantes no me motivaba. En 2020 pasaba mis ratos libres informándome sobre las evaluaciones en línea, y ahí reapareció a discusión sobre el control. Así que leí, aprendí y cambié mis estrategias; reduje los exámenes y le aposté al trabajo en equipo con énfasis en las funciones y corresponsabilidades individuales. Algo que afortunadamente no se apartaba de lo que solía hacer. Los exámenes no están exiliados de mi vida; existen pero están trabajados con objetivos y finalidades, con planteamientos de casos o bien postulados donde las opciones son casos. Exámenes en los que incluso pueden usar material, porque no se trata de memorizar, sino de razonar.

Las herramientas que prefiero son el trabajo en equipo y las presentaciones. En los trabajos en equipo uso herramientas online que me permitan verificar las aportaciones individuales, incluyo reportes de trabajo en equipo, pido el establecimiento de funciones individuales y corresponsabilidades; además, fomento evaluaciones grupales e incluso que el equipo se deshaga de los free riders. Y funciona. Al menos en mi caso. Veo más compromiso y al estar dividido en avances a lo largo del semestre, tener seguimiento y acompañarse de evaluaciones individuales, previene plagio y el contract cheating. Entiendo que no todas las personas pueden implementar trabajos y presentaciones cuando hay salones con sobrecupo; ahí es donde los exámenes repensados tienen su lugar. Esos exámenes donde entre más difícil es la elaboración, es más fácil de evaluar y que al enfocarse en procesos de pensamiento crítico, reducen la copia.

El mundo cambió con la pandemia y no podemos solo regresar a las viejas prácticas. Las herramientas del aprendizaje virtual no deben confinarse al Zoom o al Google Meets; si ya una vez aprendimos a dejar ir el control, quizá valga la pena seguir emulando a Elsa.

Integrity: the path to excellence will be the central theme of the 10th Conference for Academic Integrity on September 29th and 30th. Professors, students and administrators of educational institutions for secondary and higher education around the world will share experiences and strategies to promote academic integrity within the framework of the tenth anniversary of this event.

Universidad de Monterrey in collaboration with Universidad EAFIT from Colombia, Universidad Panamericana, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Tecnológico de Monterrey and endorsed by the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) and the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) will hold this conference with the participation of speakers from Mexico, United States, Spain, Czech Republic, Canada, Peru, New Zealand, Ecuador, Chile, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom.

To name a few, we will be joined by Dr. Tricia Bertram Gallant from UC San Diego; Dr. Sarah Eaton, from University of Calgary; Dr. Tomáš Foltýnek, from Masaryk University; Dr. Mary Davis, from Oxford Brookes Business School; Dr. Rubén Comas-Forgas, from Universitat de les Illes Balears; Dr. Jason Stephens, from University of Auckland; among others.

Because of the 10th anniversary of this conference, this edition will be online and completely free, so we extend this invitation to all those passionate about academic integrity. To participate, you just have to register in the following link so you can receive the directions to connect to the conference platform during those days:

https://bit.ly/3ShdlDc

Translation will be available in English and Spanish so you can get the most out of each presentation.

We look forward to see you there!

January 2022

December 2022