{"id":2826,"date":"2016-06-02T16:03:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T23:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2016-06-02T16:03:46","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T23:03:46","slug":"reflections-on-academic-integrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/2016\/06\/02\/reflections-on-academic-integrity\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Academic Integrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m part of a group of people who are having some conversations on academic integrity, especially in first-year courses, and recently we were asked to reflect on some questions and send our thoughts to the organizers of the discussions. I thought this was a very useful thing to do for making clear to myself some of my own thoughts on this issue, and that I might as well share them with others in case they find them useful, and to possibly engage in conversations about these things here on the blog!<\/p>\n

Note: what follows is what I think as of early June 2016, and we’ll be having more discussions in the future so my thoughts might change. Here is at least some of what I think now (it was getting so long I just stopped writing after awhile because it’s too much to read!).<\/p>\n

What is your personal understanding of why<\/em> it is important for students to conduct their coursework with academic integrity?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of the things we are doing in the university is adding to the body of human knowledge\u2014we faculty as well as students. And to do that well, we need to both recognize what\u2019s out there already and what needs to be added to it or changed. This is where it gets tricky; we could just do this without acknowledging the contributions of anyone, including ourselves; we could just say that information and arguments are important, not who made them. So it wouldn\u2019t matter what came from you and what came from others that you\u2019re building on. What would matter is that new knowledge is created and we can all benefit from that.<\/p>\n

I do lean to that picture of knowledge creation to some extent, but there is the other aspect of the university too, which is that we are here to teach students \"noun_373429_cc\"<\/a>and evaluate their work. That\u2019s where the value of fairness comes in: for better or worse, we have to grade some students as having achieved learning objectives of our courses better than others, and those grades matter for various opportunities in the future (scholarships, entrance to further programs of study, sometimes jobs, etc.). And it is simply unfair and unjust to give people an advantage in terms of grades (and the other opportunities those can bring) when they haven\u2019t put in the work that others have, when they have claimed to have come up with an idea or argument themselves but this is untrue.<\/p>\n

So while in one sense one could say that it doesn\u2019t matter where ideas and arguments and results come from so much as that they make sense and add to our body of knowledge, there is also the reality that in our society it matters who<\/em> came up with those things and there are rewards that come with being the one who did that shouldn\u2019t be given to those who didn\u2019t do the work. Thus in part, for me, it\u2019s an ethical issue, and one I am very, very concerned about (being as fair as possible in students\u2019 grading is a major worry for me, something I spend a lot of time trying to ensure).<\/p>\n

\"noun_38995_cc\"<\/a>There\u2019s another important reason too, though. Asking students to read\/watch\/hear what others have had to say and what they\u2019ve done, and then come up with something of their own<\/em> to add to that or criticize or question it is an important part of thinking well. Knowing that you yourself have something useful to say and do in response to what others have said and done, that you don\u2019t just need to learn what they\u2019ve said but also can add to it, is valuable for our efforts to help students develop as careful, confident thinkers and contributors to their social world. I often tell students in Arts One: I\u2019m less interested in what others have had to say about [whatever work we\u2019re discussing] than what you<\/em> have to say. And that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t go out and look at what others have said, but it does mean that you have to take it in, reflect, consider it critically, question, and then<\/em> come up with what makes sense to you after you\u2019ve done all that. What you produce then is your work, even though of course influenced by what others have said (including your professors and fellow students). If students don\u2019t do this, then they are missing out on a valuable aspect of education; they are just taking what others have said and listing it as their own without doing the important work of reflecting, questioning, coming up with arguments, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are the positive consequences of doing so that you want to promote, and what are the negative consequences of committing academic dishonesty that you want to prevent?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I think possibly I\u2019ve already answered these in the above question to some extent. The positive consequences include getting students experience in thinking for themselves, even while being influenced by others (as we all are). I hope this is something that learners take with them beyond university.<\/p>\n

The negative consequences of committing academic dishonesty that I want to avoid include:<\/p>\n