Ethics and Academic Integrity

Individual Value and the Academic

Community
Nancy A. Stanlick, Ph.D.
Department of Philosophy
University of Central Florida
Orlando
stanlick@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
 What is Integrity?
Stephen Carter, Integrity (New York: HarperCollins, 1996),
p. 7: “The word integrity comes from the same Latin root
as integer and historically has been understood to carry
much the same sense, the sense of wholeness: a person of
integrity, like a whole number, is a whole person, a person
somehow undivided… The word conveys … the serenity
of a person who is confident in the knowledge that he or
she is living rightly… A person of integrity lurks
somewhere inside each of us: a person we feel we can trust
to do right, to play by the rules, to keep commitments”
(bold emphasis added).
 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.
– Intentional and unintentional
 Methods of Cheating
1. High-tech methods
 Internet
 Text beepers
 Cell phones
 PDAs and Handheld Computers
 Walkmans/Tapes/CDs
2. Low-tech methods
 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
 Plagiarism Websites ~200
 A Resource: Turnitin.com
 Technologically Undetectable Cases – custom papers
 Translations
 Patchwork Papers
 Plagiarism the Old Fashioned Way
 More High Tech Methods
 Causes of Academic
Dishonesty
 Lower Level
– Lack of Skill, Knowledge or Preparation, Time Constraints
– Laziness
– Poorly defined/constructed assignments
– Lack of instructions
 Higher Level
– Competitive View of Education
 Bernard Gert’s view – the goal of education is to do the best that you
can, but also to do better than others.
 Individual Ascendancy – present orientation, hedonism, duty to self.
(See Kibler, Nuss, Patterson and Pavela, 4)
 Elements of Gert’s View
Summary of Some Main Points (from pp. 191-196 of his Morality: Its Nature and Justification
and his presentation, “Cheating,” at the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum
Conference, Gainesville, FL, February 2002).

Gert’s position is that academics are primarily (and perhaps exclusively) competitive. He likens
the process to a game (so that if one is not playing by the rules, one is not playing the game).
To cheat in a game is not to cheat umpires or referees (and so it is not to cheat faculty, or
even the cheater), but it is to cheat the other players. Hence, cheating is cheating the other
students (because part of the purpose is not simply to do well in the educational endeavor,
but to do better than others).
Doing well is the primary goal, but that isn’t what makes cheating wrong. What is wrong is that
it disadvantages others who are engaging fairly in the same competition. If academics are not
competitive, then prohibitions against cheating are nothing more than paternalistic rules.
But academics are competitive (and apparently should be so), and prohibitions against
cheating derive from moral rules. Furthermore, faculty and administrators must be clear
that their function is as “referees” whose function is to protect non-cheaters from cheaters.
The cheater is arrogant. “Cheating, no matter what the motive, shows that he (the cheater)
regards himself as not being subject to the same constraints of the activity that everyone else
participating in that activity is required to obey. It demonstrates an arrogance that is likely
to show itself in even more harmful ways than cheating.”
 Gert’s View Continued:

A Rights-Based, Individualistic Approach

 Education is Competitive
 Cheating is Not Like Breaking a Promise
 Cheaters cheat other students and no one else.
 Faculty referees
 Preventing Academic Dishonesty
Lower-Level Approaches
 State expectations in your syllabi
– 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
– 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
 Preventing Academic Dishonesty:
Higher Level Prevention
From my “Honor Codes, Individual Worth and the Academic Community:
Teaching Ethics to Plagiarists and Cheaters Across the Curriculum”
Presented at the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum Conference, February 2002

Thesis: In a manner similar to that in which a Kantian understanding of punishment is “backward

looking” and punitive, one may consider participation in an ethics seminar designed for cheaters
and plagiarists to be in some sense retaliatory on the part of the college or university in which a
conduct code violation has occurred. On the contrary, however, a Kantian view of punishment is
also “forward looking” in that violators are reinstated into the academic community against
which they have committed a violation, and their participation in an ethics seminar focused on
issues of academic dishonesty is acknowledgement of their value as members of that community.
Being recognized as a member of (and being reinstated into) an academic community is
consistent with the dignity of the person and conducive to the goals of the academic community.
Rather than simply to expel or punish, violators of academic codes of conduct become part of the
content of the ethics seminar in which they are enrolled, becoming active participants in a course
intended to foster understanding of the value of intellectual integrity.

I disagree with Gert’s position that the educational process is necessarily competitive, and I therefore
also disagree with him that a cheater always cheats other students. My position is that the
cheater cheats himself as well as the community of which he is a member. For a student to
understand what “cheating yourself” means makes considerable difference in the motivation to
avoid cheating and in our reactions to cheating.
 Higher Level Prevention Continued
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
Who are the Victims of Academic
Dishonesty?
 What is Lost?
– For the individual
– For society
 What is Gained?
 Who is affected, and how?
– How does student cheating reflect on faculty?
– Short-term and Long-term consequences
Education is not a game
– Cheating self, other students, instructor, institution,
society
– In what sense does the cheater cheat him/herself?
– Why do you care (if you care) if others cheat?
Academic Integrity Seminars:
Proactive and Reactive
 See these links for the students’ course at UCF:
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~stanlick/oscethicsjan03.html and
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~stanlick/oscethicsstudent.ppt
 New Student Orientation
 Reaction to Confirmed Instances
– Educational, not punitive
 Standard Theories of “Punishment”:
 Forward Looking – Utilitarian/Community Oriented
Rehabilitative/Responsibility Oriented
– Backward Looking
 Retributive

 A Case of “Giving Up”

 Reacting to Academic
Dishonesty
 Confronting the Student
 Verifying Plagiarism the Old Fashioned
Way
 Making the Best of a Bad Thing
 References
 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