FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
from Faculty regarding academic integrity
Q: What can I do in my classroom to promote academic integrity?
A: Include the recommended syllabus insertion found here.
- Restate your standards and expectations as exams and assignments come due.
- Inform students explicitly whether collaboration with others on a particular assignment is encouraged or authorized. Be very specific about what this means in terms of turning in assignments.
- Define appropriate use of resources, including the internet. Don’t assume that students know what plagiarism is – give it meaning with respect to their assigned work in your class.
Use the following as additional classroom practices that further student academic integrity*:
- Avoid the assignment of overly broad paper/essay topics that could easily be taken wholesale from another source;
- Describe specifically what can be properly drawn from the internet;
- Require some in-class writing assignments to better know the quality of the student’s work;
- Change exams routinely;
- Reorder exam questions;
- Proctor exams carefully;
- Maintain test materials securely;
- Closely monitor make-up test arrangements.
*Special Senate Committee on Student Academic Integrity (Clayton Committee) report.
Many of the techniques that help to deter cheating are simply good teaching methods. A great deal of student misconduct and mishandling of academic responsibilities can be minimized by clearly stating expectations in advance.
Take advantage of the case studies to use in the classroom setting for discussion.
Also, the staff in Office for Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (OSCAI) are available to come to a class session to present about different elements of academic integrity. Call our office at 612-624-6073 to schedule a presentation.
Q: What should I do if I suspect a student is responsible for scholastic dishonesty?
See this link (Report of Scholastic Dishonesty (pdf)) for a detailed description of what you can do. The short version is:
- Talk to the student and find out from the student’s perspective what happened. Tell him/her what you suspect or think, even if the student disagrees with your assessment. Ask for details about his/her perceptions.
- If you think the student engaged in scholastic dishonesty, assign an appropriate sanction (your syllabus may dictate what you do in this case) and tell the student what you are going to do. Also tell the student you will be sending a report to our office.
- Fill in the report form and send it to our office via e-mail or to Rm 211 ApH, 3505 (211 Appleby Hall, 128 Pleasant St. SE, Mpls. MN 55455). Call us if you have any questions. 612-624-6073
Q: What proof is needed that a student cheated?
A: You do need to have some evidence that cheating has occurred, however, you do not need "proof." The University’s standard of proof is "more likely than not" that the student has cheated. In other words, if you have two quizzes from students who were sitting right next to each other and when graded you find they are identical—even the wrong answers—then it is “more likely than not” that these two students cheated. Or if you discovered that a student plagiarized a paper by doing a search on Google, or a similar search engine, then it is again “more likely than not” that the student cheated. If you are unsure, please call our office to consult or talk to a fellow colleague in your department, such as your Director of Undergraduate Studies or Director of Graduate Studies, to get another opinion.
Q: : I understand that there are Web-based resources that help faculty to identify whether students have lifted entire papers or portions of papers from on-line sites without citation. What are they?
A:Yes, there are such resources, which may ease the burden of finding the source for what you might recognize as non-original work. One resource is called Turnitin.com and the University maintains a contract with them so that faculty can use this service.
It is wise to alert students in advance to your use of such technologies. See the TURNITIN.com Web site and call our office for information to obtain the password.
However, just because such a service does not locate an on-line source to confirm dishonesty, it doesn’t mean that the student has done his or her own work and not cheated. Whenever there is a continuing concern about the true authorship of a particular assignment, ask the student to meet with you. Describe your observations and explain the need for you to be confident that the student has submitted his/her own work. Ask the student to present to you their understandings of the main themes and how they developed and organized their assignments/papers. No web-based service can be a substitute for this type of in-person interaction. Such an exchange can frequently inform your perspective. If you remain certain that this particular work is not the individual student’s, the assignment/exam can be reported as dishonesty and a penalty assigned. Again, the OSCAI can provide assistance with such situations.
Q: What if the student persists in a claim that s/he did not cheat and contests my action?
A: When an academic dishonesty matter can not be satisfactorily settled on a one-to-one basis between faculty and a student, the allegation should be forwarded by faculty to OSCAI using the reporting form. Our office will review the report and discuss the situation with the instructor and the student. If the faculty remains convinced that the student did engage in scholastic dishonesty, the student will be able to challenge the decision in front of a hearing board. Although continued efforts towards informal resolution will be attempted whenever possible, Regents policies specify that a charged student has access to a full due process hearing and a campus wide appeal.
Q: I’ve heard horror stories about how much time can get consumed pursuing a student cheating case. I’m also afraid that I’ll be sued if I report a student for cheating and later it’s determined that the student did not cheat or that I’ve made a misjudgment. What are the legal vulnerabilities for me?
A: For most of the cheating cases reported to OSCAI, the cases were uneventful and straightforward requiring minimal effort. More often than not students do acknowledge their wrongdoing to faculty and accept the penalty. Regarding fears of litigation, the University will defend and indemnify individuals who make good faith reports of misconduct even if the report proves to be a mistake. On the other hand, there may be adverse consequences for faculty and the institution if cheating is known to have occurred, but is not reported. Faculty are therefore encouraged to pursue legitimate suspicions of cheating.
Q: What if the student "blows up" when I confront him/her about cheating?
A: There may be an instance when you are apprehensive about approaching a student for suspected cheating because of other erratic or poor classroom performance issues. It is always a good idea to discuss a matter of suspected cheating with another person present such as a T.A. or an administrative support person. OSCAI and the Office of the General Counsel has prepared a template for dealing with a full array of classroom conduct issues and your college has likely developed specific guidelines as well. See the classroom conduct procedures and policy .