ETHOS

JUNE 2015

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

Quote of the Month

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right
thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with
integrity.
-W. Clement Stone

Integrity Credo Unveiled at Lambton College

By: Paul Morden

TheObserver.ca

5/25/2015

The number of cases of students caught cheating on school work has

gone down 40% in the three years since Lambton College established its
Centre for Academic Integrity. Created in 2012 after administration saw
an alarming number of cheating incidents, the centre held professional
development sessions Monday with Teddi Fishman, director of the
International Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University in
South Carolina.
The fact Lambton College is facing up to the issue makes it unique
among educational institutions, Fishman said. Your rates were not out
of line with anybody else's. What is different is that you actually
recognized that it is a significant issue, and that something needs to be
done about it.
Rob Kardas, executive director of student services at Lambton College,
said the centre was formed to foster among our students the importance
of ethics, and how that translates into their everyday lives, and
eventually into their employment lives. Fishman said student success
and academic integrity are absolutely tied together.
If assessments of what students have learned aren't reliable, because of
problems with academic integrity, then the credentials that we send
people out with are also unreliable, she said.
Following Fishman's morning session at the college's Event Centre,
student ambassadors with Lambton's Centre for Academic Integrity
presented a student integrity credo that has already been posted around
the campus. Ambassador Rachel Frauley said the credo came out of a
meeting where centre coordinator Lois Nantais asked them to write
down ideas about what they stood for, and how they would like to
approach fellow students on the issue

http://www.theobserver.ca/2015/05/25/student-integritycredo-unveiled-at-lambton-college
UNC Chapel Hill Gets Serious Punishment
By: WTVD-TV NC

abc11.com

From the Director

On Unintended Consequences . . .
Sometimes, when we try to address issues
that need to be addressed, we end up creating
situations no better, or even worse, than what
we sought to improve. The recent increase in
contract cheating is a case in point.
Plagiarism detection software hasnt gotten
much betterso much so that many students
who might have been tempted to cut-andpaste substantial portions of a paper are now
less likely to do so . . . Thats the good news.
The bad news is that there are other
alternativeslike contract cheatingthat
provide another mechanism for students who
are unprepared or uninterested to avoid
doing their own work.
Its another reminder that when we focus our
attention on merely preventing cheating, its
easy to miss the mark because approaches to
cheating are constantly evolving. Fostering
engagement, improving assessments, and
encouraging ethical decision-making all take
significant time and effort, but have greater
potential for effecting lasting change. When
students are engaged, know they will be
required to demonstrate that they can make
use of what they have learned, and know how
to weigh ethical costs and benefits, cheating
becomes less attractive while authentic
learning is incentivizedand that, rather than
reducing cheating, is our goal.

~Teddi Fishman

"The board intended to send a serious message with the 12-

6/11/2015 month probation," SACS President Dr. Belle S. Wheelan

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received a

"very serious" punishment Thursday in the wake of the
damaging Wainstein report on academic fraud. The agency
that provides accreditation to institutes of higher learning,
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, announced
its decision to place UNC on probation for 12 months.
SACS cited the school for 7 violations including integrity,
comprehensive standards, control of athletics, program
content, academic support system, and academic freedom.

said. "The issue that academic integrity is at the heart of

everything our institutions do ... they need to take every
step possible to ensure the academic integrity of their
programs and degrees."
Possible punishment from the SACS board included the
option of stripping UNC of its accreditation. UNC has a year
to respond to the agency and explain exactly how it plans on
addressing the violations
Full Article: http://abc11.com/education/unc-gets-seriouspunishment-in-wake-of-scandal-/777947/

Announcements

Upcoming Events!
Integrity Leadership Course

Texas Looking into Report

of Academic Issues with
Basketball Program

Texas confirmed Wednesday the

university is investigating
allegations that mens Longhorns
basketball players cheated on tests
and received improper assistance
with coursework. In a detailed
report about the relationship
between UT athletics and
academics, the Chronicle of Higher
3rd National Congress on
Education cited three instances of
Academic Integrity
alleged academic misconduct over a
Universidad de Monterrey
nine-year period since 2006. Those
three cases, involving former
Monterrey, Mexico
players P.J. Tucker, JCovan
October 8-9, 2015
Brown, and Martez Walker, are the
http://www.udem.edu.mx/Esp/NoticiasEventos/Pages/Eventos/2015/octubre/3-Congreso- ones being reviewed by UT.

HETL 2015:
Learning Without Borders
Minneapolis, Minnesota
September 22-24, 2015
https://www.hetl.org/2015-hetl-pstlconference/

____________________________

www.facebook.com/AcademicIntegrity

http://www.twitter.com/TweetCAI

By: Phillip Dawson

6/11/2015

By: Mike Finger

6/10/2015 TheConversation.com
Chronicle of Higher Education

Hosted by Integrity Action

Central European University
Budapest, Hungary
July 611, 2015
http://www.integrityaction.org/integrityleadership-course-0

Nacional-de-Integridad-Academica.aspx

Policing Wont Be Enough to

Prevent Pay-For Plagiarism

UT said it has contacted the NCAA

about the allegations, and is
working with external compliance
experts to look into them. The
university takes any suggestion of
wrongdoing seriously, a statement
issued by the UT presidents office
read. We are always looking to
identify problems that may exist
and ways we can do better.
None of the players mentioned in
the Chronicles report remain at
UT. Rick Barnes, who served as the
Longhorns mens basketball coach
from 1998-2015, was fired in March
for performance reasons
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/20
15/06/texas-looking-into-report-ofacademic-issues-with-basketballprogram/#31696101=0

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.

Buying and selling high-stakes

assessments is bad for education. It
undermines community confidence
because we cant be sure if a grade
was earned or bought. Plagiarism
hurts plagiarists too, because they
miss out on the learning opportunities
that the assessment was supposed to
provide. Tensions around plagiarism
may be part of a culture of distrust
between teachers and students.
Recently, it was revealed that high
school students in NSW are buying
essays made-to-order online for little
more than A$100. University
assignments can be more expensive,
costing up to $1000 from the
controversial MyMaster website.
With the recent media attention, we
could be fooled into thinking pay-for
plagiarism is a modern, high-tech
invention. However, the internet
merely supports the logistics. Pay-for
plagiarism is much older than
computers many of your favorite
books were ghostwritten.
The problem is that pay-for
plagiarism is very difficult to police.
Unlike copy-paste plagiarism or
using an assignment that a previous
student submitted, each pay-for
assignment is made-to-order.
We cant compare work against a
database of sources because each
assignment is a bespoke creation
http://theconversation.com/policingwont-be-enough-to-prevent-pay-forplagiarism-42999

Welcome New Members

June 2015!
Chrissy Lieberman,
University of Arizona

This publication is sponsored by:

Ethos Staff:

CAI-L@clemson.edu

Aaron Monson:

Editor/Writer

Teddi Fishman:

Executive Editor