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Curriculum redesign as a faculty-centred approach to plagiarism reduction
No full textThe incidence of plagiarism is increasing, exacerbated by the availability of many information sources via the internet. Traditional approaches for tackling plagiarism reflect two distinct philosophies: either educate the students or catch and punish inappropriate behaviour. Both philosophies assume that the responsibility for avoiding plagiarism is the student’s so that whenever a problem is encountered, the blame rests with the student. The Australian Universities Teaching Committee (AUTC), established by the Australian Government in 2000, recommended a strategy reflecting a philosophy of sharing the responsibility for countering plagiarism across the student, staff and the institution. A key component of this approach relates to assessment design, which is the key focus of this paper. Practices regarding assessment and other strategies aimed at reducing the incidence of plagiarism at the University of Tasmania are documented and staff attitudes regarding the effectiveness of these strategies are identified. Impediments to implementing assessment strategies are also considered. By identifying both the strategies that staff see as effective, as well as the barriers to their implementation, universities can be forewarned about attitudes, obstacles, and
associated resourcing implications that might be pertinent if the plagiarism response is to become a holistic one, in which all involved bear some responsibility
Faculty ethics logic of a religiously affiliated university
No full textThis work responds to calls for ethics reform in higher education by exploring faculty realities of ethics logic within a small, religiously affiliated university. Research questions sought to discover what ethics entities existed, how they were related to each other, and how faculty members operationalised them. Using grounded theory methods and graph theory based analysis, the resulting Faculty Ethics Logic Model operationalised participant realities of the primary forces that drive teaching or resolving ethics issues at this particular university. That is, when emerging needs arose, faculty members derived response strategies primarily from knowledge, resources/artefacts, goals and beliefs; set within a framework of teaching or resolving ethics related issues, their resulting course of action was shaped by work-related contexts of group influence and collective norms. While the model did not exclude formal institutional influence, it highlighted the importance of informal elements within faculty realities (such as professional experience and desire for continued learning). Research implications pose the possiblitiy of using model construction to facilitate collective ethics logic understanding, or serve as a vehicle for discussing reform strategies. Triangulation of methods for data collection, analysis, and findings provide research trustworthiness.
This paper is based on an earlier version presented at The Center for Academic Integrity 2009 Annual International Conference
Editorial Volume 6 (1)
No full textI am pleased to introduce the next issue of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. This issue includes revised papers from two key conferences in 2009: the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity (4APCEI, Wollongong University, Australia), and the Center for Academic Integrity Annual International Conference (Washington University, US), as well as two original papers. The issue is truly international, with authors representing the United States, the Ukraine and Australia. Daniel Wueste, Director of the Rutland Institute for Ethics, and Teddi Fishman, Director of the recently renamed International Center for Academic Integrity, provide a framing piece for the issue, with their paper from 4APCEI which explores the limitations of customer service approaches in higher education. Wueste and Fishman, while acknowledging the seductive appeal of likening students to "customers", particularly as part of the "total quality movement", provide a rigorous critique of this potentially dangerous discourse. The authors demonstrate how education differs quite significantly from commerce and argue that “looking to professional practice for help in understanding the educational enterprise holds considerably more promise than looking to business practiceâ€. Wueste and Fishman are forthright in their assertion that education is based on a reciprocal relationship between teacher and learner (rather than a transaction between vendor and vendee), and that intrinsic to this relationship is a shared commitment to integrity.
Following on from Wueste's and Fishman's call for a re-articulation of values in higher education, are two papers from the CAI conference. Joanna Gilmore, Denise Strickland, Briana Timmerman, Michelle Maher (all from the University of South Carolina) and David Feldon (University of Virginia), investigate plagiarism by graduate students. Working with a sample of 113 masters and doctoral students from three university sites, representing technology, engineering, mathematics, or mathematics or science education, the researchers examined students' research proposals and conducted semi-structured interviews. Their key finding was that while plagiarism was a prevalent issue (almost 40% of the proposals contained notable plagiarism), this appeared to be largely unintentional due to a lack of disciplinary enculturation. Notably, this lack of disciplinary enculturation was further compounded for English as a Second Language (ESL) students at the pre-proposal stage, who also had to grapple with cultural differences, English language issues and a variety of other factors.
William Hanson from Anderson University in California uses grounded theory and graph theory based analysis to create a "faculty ethics logic model" based on his research at a small, religiously affiliated university. Hanson sought to operationalise participant realities of the primary forces that drive teaching or resolving ethics issues and discovered that informal elements, rather than formal institutional influence, played a major role in response strategies. In particular, faculty members used existing knowledge, resources/artefacts, goals and beliefs and their actions were shaped by work group influence and collective norms within a Christian framework. Hanson concluded that ethics policy “cannot be wholly forced upon its members… informal institutional principles originate from faculty†and that teachers "must be considered as primary change agents in ethics reform..." This research has important implications in the context of academic integrity, pointing as it does to the central, although often informal role of teachers in nurturing and promoting academic integrity on campus.
Jason Stephens (University of Connecticut), Volodymyr Romakin (Petro Mohyla State University, Ukraine) and Mariya Yukhymenko (University of Connecticut) extend previous studies which have compared cheating behaviours of US undergraduate students with students from other cultures, by investigating academic motivation and misconduct by Ukrainian students. Based on a self-report survey with a sample of 189 students from each country, their study investigated the differences between US and Ukrainian students' task value, goal orientations, moral beliefs and cheating behaviours. Significant differences between the two groups were found, most notably that Ukrainian students reported lower judgements about the wrongfulness of cheating behaviours, and correspondingly higher levels of engagement in cheating behaviour. In particular, academic task value was a significant predictor of cheating beliefs and behaviours for the Ukrainian students: the more useful and interesting the course was perceived to be, the less likely the Ukrainian students were to cheat - a finding which has clear implications for all educators, but particularly those working with Ukrainian students.
The final paper by Australian authors, Robert Kennelly, Anna Maldoni and Doug Davis (University of Canberra) provides appropriate closure to this issue. While Wueste and Fishman opened the issue by exhorting us to re-examine the value and purpose of higher education, Kennelly et al. do just that by reminding readers that educational integrity requires more than a pledge from students not to cheat. All stakeholders, from those at the highest administrative level, to those instructors teaching occasional tutorials, need to be deeply committed to the learning needs of the diverse classroom. International EAL (English as an Additional Language) students in Australian universities have long carried the burden associated with the customer service model of higher education critiqued by Wueste and Fishman. International EAL students pay high tuition fees, have additional expenses and responsibilities to fulfil English language requirements (in most Australian universities, a minimum International English Language Test Score (IELTS) of 6.00 for undergraduate entry), and in many instances, find at arrival that this IELTS score is inadequate for the level of oral and written communication required. Furthermore, with decreasing government funding and the demise of student unions, the level of on-campus services has gradually declined, so that students not only struggle with their academic load, they are often lonely and isolated. The discipline-based approach to academic and language development trialled, evaluated and recommended by Kennelly et al. goes some way to addressing the academic needs of this group of students. Using data from six consecutive semesters, the authors provide compelling evidence that team-taught, disciplined-based support programs have the potential to improve international EAL students' competence in academic and critical literacy skills, while simultaneously building English language proficiency.
I trust you will enjoy this issue of the International Journal for Educational Integrity, and invite you to submit manuscripts for review for Volume 7(1), to be published in mid-2011. Volume 6(2) is being guest edited by Chris Moore and Ruth Walker, on the topic of 'digital technologies and educational integrity' and is due to be published in December this year.
Tracey Bretag, IJEI Editor
[email protected]
I just want friends: a ‘relational wellbeing’ approach to providing school support for a young person with Asperger syndrome
No full textVulnerable young people with impairments in their capacity to relate to others, such as those with Asperger syndrome, present a particular challenge to education professionals, schools and systems. Their social and behavioural patterns tend to place them at odds with school structures and staff expectations thus increasing the risk of exclusion (Swayne & Fielding n.d.). School and systemic responses may need to be tailored to individual needs in complex cases. This paper uses a case study of a young person diagnosed with Asperger syndrome to explore how an intervention incorporating the student’s own ideas and insights into how his wellbeing at school could be improved contributed to an improvement in his capacity for social interaction as well as a significant reduction in his aggressive behaviour over a two-year period
Digital integrity and the teaching/learning nexus: Taking the pedagogical pulse of the multilocation university
No full textThis case study considers questions of pedagogical and educational integrity in relation to multi-location or distributed learning environments that deploy blended learning models. Specifically, we engage with the implications of these models in light of recommendations that Australian universities continue to improve access for students from low socio-economic backgrounds and other identified equity groups. We provide an overview of the critical success factors germane to the implementation of these models at the University of Wollongong in 2000 and examine some of the pressure points that have emerged as the project expands into 2010
Digital literacies and academic integrity
No full textThe everyday use of new media technology has inevitably resulted in a shift in students' learning and literacy practices. When tracked into the classroom, these new literacies have consequences for scholarly practice, such as when students complete assignments that draw on source material of dubious academic credibility, which leads to conflict with their teacher's expectations about academic integrity. For instance, when students build on their new media literacy skills by creating mashup videos for YouTube, they will probably exercise different ideas about fair use of source material and acknowledgement practices than those upheld in academe. However, educators can bridge the gap between these everyday media practices and more academic expectations about integrity and appropriate discourse by explicitly discussing the different protocols at play in student use of new media technologies and activities. Allowing for usage of 'home-based' literacy practices gives educators the room to explore alternative academic literacies, which fit new classroom dynamics, while also meeting the needs of more discipline specific academic discourse. This paper will discuss some ways to begin conversations about literacy that will lead to students engaging with issues of academic integrity, arguing that decontextualised moralising about plagiarism, for example, serves little purpose. Approaching academic integrity as itself a form of literacy practice allows educators to build on existing literacies by contextualising these in relation to academic norms
Ethics of internet research: A rhetorical case-based approach
No full textEthics of Internet Research is the 59th volume in the Digital Formations series published by Peter Lang and the first volume in that series dedicated to research ethics, a subject not substantively addressed by Digital Formations since 2003's Online Social Research. It is a good companion piece to Digital Media Ethics by Charles Ess, also released in 2009 but published by Polity Press, which concentrates on more 'structural' issues, such as copyright.
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Editorial Volume 6 (2)
No full textIntroduction to the special issue:
"Digital technologies and educational integrity"
When Roger Silverstone (1999, p.10) asked "what is new about new media?" more than a decade ago at the launch of the first edition of the journal New Media and Society, he framed the question as an inquiry about the relationship between continuity and change. To address the issues relating to the interest and reliance on technologies in educational contexts - whether we are talking about web 2.0, digital media, social media, new media, or even next media - requires us to consider what is most important about the standards, traditions and practices that we hold as crucial to teaching, learning and research, as well as their relationship to change.
This special issue broaches these issues to consider how changes in technologies used by teachers and learners - both in and out of educational contexts - has impacted on our understandings of educational integrity. To do this, we have had to ask questions about the integrity of the educational enterprise itself: just as the expanding research and writing capacities of digital media have complicated notions of authorship, so too does the increasing reliance on technologies in educational settings complicate expectations about the open or gated nature of educational institutions. However, it is not so much the digital technologies themselves, but how they are used, regarded, implemented and positioned by institutions, that offer a new twist to our interpretation of education as both 'borderless' and 'gatekeeping'.
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Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning
No full textPrensky introduced us to the "digital natives" in 2001, claiming that the generation of students born in the 1980s and the 1990s are so steeped in the use of digital technologies that they think, act and are motivated differently to older generations. Digital natives have been also described as "millenials" (Howe and Strauss, 2003) and members of the "net-generation"(Tapscott, 1998). These labels, along with their technological determinism, have polarised debates in education about adapting teaching approaches to different learning styles and 'new' media technologies. Those critical of Prensky highlight his "weak empirical and theoretical foundations" (Bennett, Maton & Kervin, 2008, p.777) and similar charges might be laid against his latest book, Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning (2010). However, I find that Prensky writes with a practical and experiential integrity that grounds his latest pedagogical offering.
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Is it still OK to play?
No full textThis essay provides a personal account of my experience working in a school climate of increased student and teacher accountability where play, recess and extra-curricular activities were devalued and pushed to the brink of extinction. The two works of fiction explored in the essay, Santa Claus is comin’ to town and ‘All summer in a day’, serve as powerful metaphors exploring how devaluing play can adversely affect the overall wellbeing of children