Get started with a review of your school's current policy on academic integrity.
- Discussions that are broadly collaborative, including teachers, other staff, administrators, students, and parents, generate "buy-in" as well as shared understandings across the school community.
- Make sure the policy is original work or credit the source! Read this about a plagiarized plagiarism code, just for fun.
Compare your draft or existing policy to other schools' or districts' honesty and/or academic integrity policies.
- A review of most policies for educational institutions indicates these are generally written in parts:
- definitions and specific examples of what is meant by cheating and plagiarism
- an outline of the levels and range of consequences
- in some cases, a description of the process of consideration of the offence, and appropriate consequences
- in post-secondary institutions, an appeal process
- All policy documents emphasize the school's and/or district's strict commitment to ethical and respectful academic conduct. Some also identify the shared responsibility for academic integrity within the school community.
"Administrators, teachers, parents and students must understand, accept, and share responsibilities if this policy is to be effective." Read more. See also Palo Alto High School's Academic Honesty Policy, Handbook, pages 33-35.
Create an accountability contract.
Engage students in self-assessment. For examples, see tools from 2Learn.ca that prompt students to serious consideration of academic integrity.
Responsible Resource Use
Accountability Contract
Heighten student anxiety; expect them to meet "publishing standards" for submitting finished work.
For example, UBC's Education Library asks students for permission to "mount an electronic copy of the work on our web site and add a copy of the publication to our circulating collection." Students are being asked to verify that their work meets standards for publishing; the "author" agrees, in signing,
... to provide free, unrestricted access to the work. Copyright remains with the author(s). The author(s) warrant that the work does not infringe on any existing copyright. The author(s) also warrant that they have obtained the necessary permission from the copyright holders to reproduce the work in all media in all countries including any materials such as text, tables, diagrams, photographs, sound and video clips not owned by the author(s). The author(s) warrant that all applicable permission documents are attached.
Communicate your collaboratively-developed policy and everyone's role and place in building a culture of integrity.
- Talk about it in classrooms. Most important are the shared set of understandings that come from discussing the issues.
- Tie your policy and practice to schools goals for achievement, literacy, and social responsibility.
- Publish a current copy in staff and student Handbooks, in print and electronic newsletters, and on the school website.
- Put it onto the agenda for discussion at meetings of staff, students, and parents.
- Review and update the policy annually.
Here's how the English Department at Lord Byng Secondary in Vancouver approaches the issue:
The teaching of plagiarism is embedded in the BC English and Language Arts curricula. Students entering grade 8 are able to acknowledge secondary sources with citations, describe plagiarism, and understand concepts of respect for copyright. By the time they graduate, students are expected to be able to demonstrate an understanding of the conventions of writing and representing; in particular, they are expected to demonstrate respect for copyright and cite references using an accepted style guide such as MLA.
The accountability contract is discussed with English classes every year and signed by both the student and the parent (guardian) who agree that the common goal is to help students become competent, independent learners. All students, every year, also view a DVD called Plagiarism: It’s a Crime. In their five-year tenure as students, they will have considered, seen and heard the message five times!
Educators, through classroom discussion and the use of an accountability contract, thus:
- Place the responsibility for honourable academic behaviour, both as a member of the school community and as a citizen of the broader community, on the student
- Assure the student of school-wide consistency on the issue
- Recommend he or she check for format expectations and not hope to get away with “I didn’t know."
- Define plagiarism as a serious academic offence (a "crime"); equally serious is being an accessory to plagiarism or having someone else (such as a tutor) do the work.
- Include some examples, such as paraphrasing an idea but failing to cite the source of the idea; copying another person’s diagram, picture, or visual but not acknowledging the creator; promoting as your own idea one that was someone else’s.
- Offer pointers on avoiding plagiarism by being “thorough and scholarly”; students are prompted to cite their sources in pages called either Works Cited or Works Consulted (where some sources are consulted and shape the direction of the paper and thinking but are not directly and indirectly cited).
- Outline the penalties, including one or more of the following: committee review, ZERO on the assignment, no second chance on the assignment, a disciplinary note in the student file, removal of eligibility for awards, and other consequences as may be deemed appropriate.
Congratulations!
You have begun the process for building a culture of integrity
