Faculty and Students Address Academic Integrity
Faculty Directions, Spring 2003
by Barbara WeaverEducational Technology Services
"It is a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless, that no college campus, public, private, secular or religious, is entirely free of academic dishonesty. Several recent studies suggest that it is positively epidemic," Dr. Daniel Wueste, director of the Robert J. Rutland Center for Ethics, said.
The Rutland Center's Academic Integrity Initiative and this year's President's Colloquium: Academic Integrity and Integrity in the Academy are providing faculty and students the tools and opportunities to proactively address a set of issues confronted on every university campus.
An innovation grant helped defray the costs of developing and delivering a CD of vignettes about cheating and an accompanying brochure of discussion questions. Wueste's idea was to create vignettes that would attract students to talk about academic integrity. He knew, to achieve that goal, the vignettes needed to be more like art than sermons and that he would need the help of others. He did not have to look far to find that help.
Dr. Mark Charney (English) mentored two of his best student screenwriters, Matt Wiater and John Longo, who wrote the vignettes. The three of them met weekly to discuss the project. Charney said the students researched the topic of cheating by interviewing academic officials, such as Associate Dean George Carter (academic services) and students who were honest about delineating the ways they cheat and ways others have cheated. They broke the methods of cheating into discrete types and discussed the importance of using language that is appropriate for students. They understood the need to accurately display the situations and avoid being prescriptive or didactic. Their scripts needed to prompt questions and discussions, not to provide answers.
Matt and John wrote several vignettes. The writing process, made easier by what have become standard technological tools, involved editing those first vignettes, adding new vignettes and a script for President Barker, and sending all scripts to Wueste and Carter for their review. When they received approval, President Barker's script and six vignette scripts were given to Prof. Clifton Egan (performing arts), who directed the productions with Charney.
The cast includes Student Acting Ensemble members P.J. Monson, Kris Simpson, Kent Brown, John Keebler, and Christina Desiderio,
In "The Paper", a student contemplates buying a paper off the Internet.
"Professors" shows how professors use technology to find plagiarism.
as well as performers Prof. Heather Currie (performing arts), Richard Cowan (performing arts), and Egan.
Communications Center staff members Glenn Spake, David White, Lance McKinney, and Al Littlejohn were instrumental in the filming, as well as special effects and editing, of all six vignettes and President Barker's introductory remarks. Egan explained that each three-minute vignette took three hours to shoot and three hours to edit. He appreciated the opportunity to work with these very skilled communications professionals. Egan said that 25 years ago he edited a film by physically cutting and gluing celluloid. In contrast, his technologically advanced editing experience with David White was amazing, he said.
Dr. Tharon Howard (English) accomplished the next step in creating the CD. Using Photoshop, SoundForge, Premiere, Cleaner 5, and Authorware, he turned the video into a well-designed CD. He consulted with Michael Chase, an MAPC student who used to work in Silicon Valley with digital video, on what settings to use when re-rendering the video clips in QuickTime.
Dr. Kelly Smith and Dr. Stephen Satris, both in philosophy and religion, and Dr. Kathleen Yancey, director of the Pearce Center for Professional Communication, provided instructional support for the CD.
The CD was distributed to all first-year and transfer students and is available to all Clemson University employees and students on the network at Share/Groups/Classes/Ethics. Clemson Closed Network television also aired the vignettes and President Barker's statement in December 2002.
Another tool available to help faculty and students discuss academic integrity and integrity in the academy is a customized reader compiled by Dr. Donna Winchell (English). English graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are using the reader with their English 101 Composition I and English 102 Composition II students. The students respond to the readings in various ways: email, discussion board, team folders, or share folders in MyCLE. Drafts of more formal writing assignments on the Colloquium theme are peer reviewed using laptop computers.
Some English GTAs have assigned electronic portfolios that are the culmination of lots of reading, writing, and discussion related to the Colloquium theme. Fall semester 2002, Winchell used a midterm portfolio which asked the students to consider how their reading and writing up to that point had shaped their thinking about academic integrity. Their final portfolio asked them to consider what they had learned about the theme and about their writing. They had the choice of creating a reflective essay with links or coming up with their own creative way of presenting their ideas on the semester's work.
Fall semester 2002 students in the laptop section of Speech 250 Public Speaking used both the CD and customized reader to prompt discussion on the Colloquium theme. One speech assignment required them to summarize an essay from the reader and to evaluate the author's thesis and supporting evidence. Before the students developed their persuasive speeches, Smith came to class to provide a primer in ethics, focusing on the Colloquium theme and questions the students developed after watching the CD.
Three other resources to aid discussion of integrity in the academy were offered during fall semester 2002:
- The production of Oleanna by David Mamet and directed by Dr. Ray Sawyer (performing arts) at the Brook's Center
- Laptop faculty workshop led by Wueste, Egan, Winchell, and Sawyer
- Pearce Center for Professional Communication workshops on plagiarism
On January 6, 2003 the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation held an all-day workshop led by Julia Christensen Hughes, director, Teaching Support Services, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Among other things, she shared her findings about why students cheat. Also this semester, the Pearce Center will offer workshops to help faculty members design assignments around the Colloquium theme.
It is significant that three vignettes of the six on the CD show technology being used by students or professors. In "The Lab Report," four students use a computer to collaborate on a lab report. In "The Paper," a student contemplates buying a paper off the Internet. In "Professors," a professor uses a computer to scan his students' papers through an electronic tool aimed to catch those who plagiarize. Technology makes cheating and catching cheaters easier.
Technology is also aiding many faculty and students in tackling the ethical issues they face in academics. The resources available for this year's President's Colloquium are moving us closer to Ethics Across the Curriculum, where academic integrity and integrity in the academy are part of the Clemson Experience, where faculty and students want to talk about these difficult issues and improve the situation.