Thriving in Academe

Issues to Consider

What's new on the Horizon?
Just when we've thought we've seen it all, new surprises about integrity come our way!

Technology creates new possibilities—for mischief. The Internet offers easy access to information-sometimes all too easy and sometimes unattributed, false, and misleading. As we have begun to find out, term papers on thousands of topics can easily be downloaded.

So now we have to talk about "cyber-cheating," not just regular "cheating." How can we understand these new developments and what can we do about them? We're beginning to find ways of making "Web-savvy" assignments (Graf, 1999-2000).

But we need to start from a clear and complete outlining of our expectations and our own understanding of the medium. The good news is that organized "cyber-helpers" have already arisen. The Center for Applied and Professional Ethics at Central Missouri State University, for instance, has compiled a database of 11,000 Internet sites from which students can download papers. Another site, Integriguard at www.interguard.com, provides services relating to fighting plagarism.

Honor codes can have an impact. There's nothing new about honor codes, but they have traditionally been in place only in small schools, often private liberal arts institutions, military academies, and institutions with strong value-based missions. The implementation of traditional honor codes and what is called "the modified code" is spreading and apparently having an impact. There is now empirical evidence that a modified code lowers levels of student cheating (McCabe & Pavela, 2000). Faculty could encourage discussion of such a possibility through appropriate faculty governance committees and mechanisms.

We need to keep our own house in order. From just the past decade, we can recall a variety of shocking scandals that involved academic dishonesty, not all of which relate to student behaviors. We would be less than honest if we do not sometimes turn this mirror of examination backwards and look carefully at our own professional behaviors as teachers and scholars. We have seen regrettable, indeed even deplorable, incidents of unethical behaviors in the conduct of research, in relationships between faculty and students, and in the overall conduct of institutional affairs.

We don't really know if the situation is any worse now that it was 50 years ago. But no matter how big or how small the level of "dishonesty" may be, it still betrays trust within our academic community. As individuals, we can't tackle this all at once, but we can look to our own behaviors.

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