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TRU Faculty aim to prevent academic dishonesty

Glynn Brothen - News Editor

With all that is required of a student in university, the advancement of technology is a blessing. Using the internet helps cut down on research time and makes assignments easier to complete, however, when it comes to increased cases of plagiarism and cheating to make the grade, the internet offers much temptation. Recently, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) polled 20,000 first year students at Canadian post-secondary institutions to review cases of dishonesty in Canadian universities. The survey revealed that students in Canada perceived many acts of academic dishonesty as “not cheating” or “trivial cheating,” while faculty perceived these same acts as moderate or serious cheating. More than half of the students admitted to cheating with 73 per cent confessing to committing one or more acts of plagiarism on written work in high school and 60 per cent admitting to cheating during tests and exams. As well, in surveys of post-secondary institutions in the United States and Canada, 41% of faculty admitted to ignoring incidents of suspected academic dishonesty. Although there may be different ideas as to what constitutes cheating, the data suggests student academic misconduct is often overlooked. The President and CEO of CCL, Dr. Paul Cappon, stated the Internet and technological advancements are to blame for student corruption. “Over the past decade internet and high-tech devices have enabled a virtual explosion of classroom cheating,” he said. A report from one of the Canadian institutions polled indicated an increase in the frequency of cheating and plagiarism by 81 per cent between 2003 and 2006. Cases of plagiarism based on access to the Internet jumped from 54 to 153 in the same period. “I would agree technology could indeed create new opportunities for cheating. Historically, it is clear that technology has played a role in changing the landscape of academic integrity across Canadian campuses, however cheating is not a new phenomenon,” said Dr. Michael Mehta, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at TRU. Mehta also stated that although Internet search engines provide a wealth of data, reliance on them alone does not constitute research. “Students who rely exclusively on web-based content often lose sight of context and rarely trace the intellectual history and debates of ideas and theories." TRU policy states the following in regards to cheating and plagiarism: “Apart from the responsibility of the student in not participating in an act of academic dishonesty, it is the responsibility of the TRU staff to take all reasonable steps to educate students regarding academic integrity and to prevent and to detect acts of academic dishonesty”. “I believe that the academic policy at TRU is consistent with every other university I’ve been at. It’s extremely fair and balanced,” said Mehta. TRU deals with roughly 50 cases of cheating or plagiarism per year. Since January, there have been 35 cases presented to the committee. “To the best of my knowledge, two students have been suspended for breaching TRU's Academic Integrity Policy. One in 2009 and another in 2010,” said Nancy Flood, chair of the Academic Integrity Committee. Dean of Sciences Dr. Tom Dickinson agrees that the use of electronics and the Internet is a problem when it comes to students plagiarizing. “Technology makes access to information of any sort almost instantaneous,” he said. “What I find disturbing is the ability to access ready-made material for essays.” Dickinson said most often plagiarism is unintentional and results from a lack of education as to what plagiarism is and only a small segment of people trying to ‘pull one over on the prof’. Taking a proactive approach to discourage cheating and plagiarism is what both Dickinson and Mehta recommend. “I’d like to see more of our faculty totally aware of the policy and what it includes and where their responsibility lies. There is no perfect way to deal with [plagiarism] other than making sure what expectations are on both sides of the coin” said Dickinson Mehta echoed this sentiment stating that faculty “must play a role in creating an environment where cheating becomes less likely. Assignments need to be ‘cheat proof’ with questions that are specific to the context in that course.” Elizabeth Rennie, a librarian and member of the Academic Integrity Committee has been taking action towards reducing occurrences of academic dishonesty. Rennie agrees that increased plagiarism is correlated with the Internet, but feels as though most first year students do not know the dangers of ‘cutting and pasting’. “It’s pretty easy to lose track when citing. Software can help organize resources, which is why we subscribe to ‘Refworks’ software and have guides on how to cite properly,” said Rennie. The library offers two different types of workshops. In-class workshops are typically booked for first-year students by their instructors. These workshops clarify what plagiarism is and how it is different from paraphrasing. Explanations for different citation formats are also provided. The second workshop offers a more hands-on approach to the actual citation process on research essays. During these sessions, students are given time to discuss and ask questions regarding academic policies. “Most students are honest,” said Rennie. “It boils down to finding a system for them that cooperates with academic integrity.” As students continue with their studies and use the Internet as a way of discovering information, they must know that it is the goal of their university to make sure all abide by the integrity policy to make a level playing field for all alumni. “The weight of success is hard work,” said Dickinson “the cheaters don’t prosper.”