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A Focus on Academic Integrity

Code found not to be part of campus culture

A new report looking at academic integrity at Duke said the university is ahead of other schools in addressing the problem, but that cheating is a serious issue here and needs attention from faculty, students, administrators and parents. The report noted that large numbers of faculty members fail to regularly discuss academic integrity, almost half of the students have reported engaging in unauthorized collaborations or other questionable behavior and policies regarding academic integrity are scattered throughout various university manuals and sometimes include contradictory information. At the same time, the report pointed out there is a high level of commitment to addressing academic integrity issues at Duke. "What I'm seeing is that Duke is a world ahead of other institutions in tackling these issues," said Diane M. Waryold, executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity. The center, affiliated with Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics, serves member institutions across the country to promote academic integrity. "It's on our radar screen," Waryold said. "Faculty, students and administrators are talking about it and keeping it on the agenda, and that's important. There is a problem here at Duke, just as there is at probably every institution." The report was presented Thursday to an unusual joint session of the Arts and Sciences Council and the Engineering Faculty Council. The faculty councils were scheduled to receive a resolution outlining several actions addressing academic integrity issues and will meet again in April to vote on the resolution. Data in the report came from a survey of Duke students, regular-rank faculty members, teaching assistants and administrators. Almost 400 responses were received. The data showed that unauthorized collaboration (45 percent) and a failure to footnote a few copied sentences (38 percent) are the most common violations by students. Other violations included falsifying lab or research data (37 percent); plagiarism (11 percent); copying from another's text or exam (11 percent); using notes during a test (4 percent) and using a term paper mill from the Internet or some other source (2 percent). Twenty-seven percent of the students said they have observed cheating during tests, but only 2 percent said they have reported cheating. Faculty members, according to the survey, took several measures to prevent cheating, but shied away from employing some useful methods. Eighty-three percent said they changed exams regularly, but only 28 percent said they put information in the syllabus about cheating and only 17 percent said they talked to students about cheating detection. The numbers were lower for Duke teaching assistants. Recommendations from the report focused on clarifying policies and setting up an infrastructure designed to ensure that issues of academic integrity are regularly discussed inside and outside the classroom and even in the admissions process. The report noted that the university has already taken several important steps, most prominently the signing of the 1993 honor code by this year's entire first-year class during an orientation session. But it said that the high-profile event needs to be followed by additional events to keep the honor code alive in students' minds. "The code is not a highly visible feature of campus life for students, faculty or administrators," the report said. "It is little discussed in Duke classrooms, and it does not shape campus behavior in prominent ways as it does on some honor code campuses, where students take unproctored and even self-scheduled examinations." Other recommendations included:

  • Creating an Academic Integrity Council. The council would be responsible for developing educational programs and materials about the honor code, judicial policies and ways to promote academic integrity among students, faculty and staff. It also would be a means to ensure regular discussion of academic integrity issues by various campus groups.
  • Unifying Duke's various student and faculty policies on academic integrity into a single, easily accessible and user-friendly source. The report found that clarification was needed of the plagiarism policy and of faculty and student responsibilities in reporting cheating incidents.
  • Promoting faculty leadership on the issue. Academic integrity issues need to be part of faculty and teaching assistant training, and more of a part of their classes. "These issues should be part of every syllabus," Waryold said. "They should be mentioned in the very first class and the students should be reminded throughout the semester."
  • Engaging students in ongoing discussions about academic integrity. Matthew Baugh, a Duke senior who will be a Rhodes Scholar, was co-chair of the committee. He said most students take academic integrity seriously, but that regular discussion would make a difference. "The thing we've noticed is it's important to keep it in everyone's mind," Baugh said. "We find that when people think about academic integrity a lot, they're more likely to act on it."
  • Involving staff, administrators, parents, alumni and trustees.

"It's clear we need to go to all levels," Baugh said. "It's part of creating a community of respect for academic integrity. One of the things we have to look at is working with admissions to make this message clear to prospective students and their families."