Ethics and Integrity in
Education: The Problem
of Academic Dishonesty
Dr. Nancy A. Stanlick
Department of Philosophy
CNH 411-I
407-823-5459
E-mail: stanlick@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
Cheating and Plagiarism
Defined:
Cheating: unauthorized assistance in
graded, for-credit assignments
Plagiarism: appropriating the work of
others and claiming implicitly or
explicitly that it is one’s own.
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Intentional and unintentional
Methods of Cheating
1. High-tech methods
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Internet
Text beepers
Cell phones
PDAs and Handheld Computers
Walkmans/Tapes/CDs
2. Low-tech methods
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Water Bottles
Mirrored Glasses
Body Writing
The “Support” Bra
Folded Paper/Leg Fans
Duplicate Blue Books
Phantom Students
Test form replacements
Methods of Plagiarism
 Internet
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Plagiarism Websites ~200
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A Resource: Turnitin.com – see
http://www.turnitin.com
Technologically Undetectable Cases – custom
papers
Translations
 Patchwork Papers
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 Plagiarism the Old Fashioned Way
Causes of Academic
Dishonesty
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Lack of Skill, Knowledge or Preparation, Time Constraints
Laziness
Excessive workload
Poorly defined/constructed assignments
Lack of instructions, lack of appropriate assistance
Competitive View of Education – see esp. Bernard Gert’s
Morality: Its Nature and Justification
A theoretical orientation: Individual Ascendancy – present
orientation, hedonism, duty to self. (See Kibler, Nuss,
Patterson and Pavela, 4)
Some Elements of Bernard
Gert’s View of Education
as a Competitive Activity:
An Individualistic Approach
Education is Competitive; Analogy to
Sports.
Cheating is Not Like Breaking a Promise.
Cheaters cheat other students and no one
else.
Faculty referees
An Alternative View:
A Cooperative, CommunityBased Approach to Education
Should we design our courses on a
competitive model?
Should we encourage student
collaboration and cooperation?
What are the limits of collaborative
student activity?
Why the Competitive Model
Fails
“The very stress on individualism, on
competition, on achieving material
success which so marks our society
also generates intense pressures to
cut corners” Sissela Bok, Lying:
Moral Choice in Public and Private
Life (New York: Vintage, 1999) 244,
emphasis added.
Some Additional
Considerations Regarding
the Competitive Model of
Education:
What it lacks is appropriate incentive not to
cheat. If education is competitive, it does not
follow that the reason not to cheat is that others
won’t allow you the opportunity to gain the
benefits of the activity if you do. The cheater will,
in that case, try to find more and better ways to
cheat so as not to be caught.
Preventing Academic Dishonesty
Lower-Level Approaches
State expectations in your syllabi
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Explain rules of research
Remind students of penalties & honor policy(ies)
State clearly what is permitted and what is not permitted in your
classes
Unique Assignments
“Building Papers” an element at a time
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Limitations/Advantages
Conferences with students, in-class essays on
papers, explanation of references
Proctor actively and avoid distractions
Beware (and be aware) of online resources
Community Versus Competition:
Thinking of education as competitive does
not solve the problem of cheating. It might
instead exacerbate it. The way to combat
the problem of cheating is to prevent the
temptation before it starts. And the way
to do that is to build educational
communities in which teachers and
students interact with each other, not in
which they act simply within the confines
of an impersonal institution.
Prevention Continued: Higher
Level
A Virtue Ethics Approach
Community Ascendancy – future orientation,
takes responsibility, duty to others (See
Kibler, Nuss, Patterson, and Pavela, 4).
Stating the rules is not enough –
understanding
Punishment is not the solution
A Kantian+Communitarian view of
punishment
Academic Integrity Seminars:
Proactive and Reactive
See these links for the students’ course at
UCF: http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~stanlick/syllabi.html
Reaction to Confirmed Instances
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Educational, not punitive
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Forward Looking – Utilitarian/Community
Oriented
 Rehabilitative/Responsibility
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Backward Looking
 Retributive
 A Case of “Giving Up”
Oriented
Reacting to Academic
Dishonesty
Confronting the Student
Verifying Plagiarism the Old Fashioned
Way
Making the Best of a Bad Thing
“Trust and integrity are
precious resources,
easily squandered, hard
to regain. They can
thrive only on a
foundation of respect for
veracity” (Bok, 249).
References
Bok, Sissela, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (New York:
Vintage Books, 1999).
Gert, Bernard, Morality: Its Nature and Justification (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
Herman, A.L., “College Cheating: A Plea for Leniency,” Journal of Higher
Education, 37(5) May 1966: 260-266.
Kibler, William L, Elizabeth M. Nuss,et. Al., Academic Integrity and
Student Development: Legal Issues and Policy Perspectives (College
Administration Publications, 1988).
McCabe, Donald L, Linda K. Trevino and Kenneth D. Butterfield,
“Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research” Ethics and
Behavior, 11(3), 2001: 219-232.
McCabe, Donald L. and Linda K. Trevino, “Academic Dishonesty: Honor
Codes and Other Contextual Influences” Journal of Higher Education,
64(5), Sep-Oct. 1993: 522-538.
Noah, Harold J. and Max A. Eckstein, Fraud and Education: The Worm
in the Apple (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
On-Line Resources
The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke
University.
UCF Writing Center
MLA, Chicago, Other Manuals through UCF
Library
Plagiarism: How to Recognize it and How to
Avoid it. Go to
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
Ethics Updates. Go to
http://ethics.acusd.edu/Resources/AcademicIntegrity/Index
.html