I am making changes to my syllabi. So far so good. I have changed the number of assignments and reworked the weight of those assignments, mostly to make my life a little easier.
But I am thinking a great deal about academic dishonesty and plagiarism. It is a huge problem at my college. I read my college's policy in the Student Handbook, and I believe it really does not have much teeth to it. It basically says that the instructor has the right to give a failing grade for the assignment determined to be plagiarized or s student is found to have cheated. But then it says little about any additional punishment, other than the student can be placed on probation, suspended or expelled.
So here's my question. Should there be more detail in the policy? I mean, it appears to me that if someone commits plagiarism or academic dishonesty, failure for the assignment is the minimum punishment. My research project is weighted in such a way that if a student fails, he or she fails the course. But, as far as tests, I think a student could actually pass, despite having cheated. So, I indicated that in addition to failure for the assignment, the guilty party will also fail the course.
Does your college's policy have some teeth in it? What's your policy?
I am curious....
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6 comments:
Our university has rather clear policies on academic misconduct. They mean business.
I had my first blatant case last spring. The way it is handled here is that the instructor sends the questionable materials to the academic dean. From there, the instructor is out of it--alleviates tense confrontations in offices. In fact, the deans tell students NOT to speak to instructors.
In my case, the student bought a paper off the Internet. Penalty? Failure in my course and a one semester suspension from the university. It was her first offense. There was never any doubt that she would fail my course. I had 100% percent support all the way to the provost's office.
At my old school a student could be expelled for plagiarism. The only obvious case I had, I told a student that she had gotten a zero on the assignment, which meant she was unlikely to pass the class - so she dropped it. Presto, no longer my problem.
At the 'mater, I knew a TA (math, like me at the time, pre-adjuncting) that had a student COLD. Student F never picked up tests so the TA had all the copies of that students, err, F's (although high-ish ones).
Magically, at the same time said student improves enough on the final to get an A on it (and pass with a low C at that), his writing style completely changes.
The TA found it to be suspiciously peculiar, and the case got challenged all the way up the chain. She was ultimately forced to give the student the C. The spineless admin evidently believed in magic over logic.
Also seeing cases where the shade of blue on some TA's test changed between the answer marked wrong and the correct answer oddly ignored when grading, I got into the writing comments in (and otherwise scribling thru) the white space. The crap people need to do to try and cut this sh*t off at the pass is astounding.
At minimum, we can give the student a zero on the assignment. If it is a major thing, though, like an exam or term paper, then we document and report to the dean for disciplinary action. Where I went as an undergaduate, plagiarism or cheating was sufficient to get expelled. Around here, that is not done on a first offense. However, this semester in our faculty meetings, we were told that we are supposed to be cracking down on it more than in the past.
We have very few guidelines, although I have stated in my syllabus that I reserve the right to go after them to the full extent of the college's policies. This usually leads chaters to drop the course. At a minimum I fail them for the entire course, mostly because I can't determine when their work started and the cheating ended, so they get credit for none of it.
I'm lucky in that my college has an honor code, which is very traditional and a big deal, so there is automatically a structure in place that says academic dishonesty (and every other kind) is bad. It doesn't mean no one does it, of course, but it does send the right message. The code is administered by a student council, which means that prosecution varies - some incarnations are very strict, others are very lenient. It's a little bit of a problem for the faculty that we don't administer punishments (we can suggest, but the council doesn't have to follow our suggestions - though conversely they can be harsher than we are sometimes), but the process of going before the council is a huge deal and terrifies students. (And sometimes faculty.) It doesn't always stop them from plagiarizing, of course, but they do dread going before the council.
Technically we are required to hand ALL instances of academic dishonesty over to the council. In practice, I know that sometimes faculty manage things under-the-table, so to speak. Students are usually very happy to go along with this because otherwise they go before the honor council.
(I don't know if something going on a student's record is part of the consequences, though it wouldn't surprise me.)
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