Academic Integrity

What is Academic Integrity?

Academic integrity is the core set of values and principles that underwrite the very mission of the University of Missouri: integrity, honesty, hard work, and the determination to translate personal and professional principles into behavior. The focus of the University at every level (administration, faculty, staff and students) is to actively instill and reinforce the fundamental values central to the academic integrity ethic.

Article VI of the Faculty Handbook states "Academic dishonesty refers to any act that is intended to produce an academic assessment that is not commensurate with an individual's performance, or any act that is intended to unfairly assist or hinder an individual's academic efforts.

Such acts include a) allowing the work of one person to be academically assessed as the work of another; b) allowing academic credit to be assigned to work that was not performed; c) unauthorized possession of resources (e.g., reserved library material, laboratory material, art work, computer software or medical excuses); d) misrepresentation of an academic record (e.g., changing grades, failure to report work done at other institutions); e) denial of access to resources (e.g., reserved library material, laboratory material, art work, computer software) intended to be available to others.

Reasons Students Engage in Academic Dishonesty

Institutional factors such as the existence of a campus norm supporting cheating and the lack of an honor code
Student feeling that faculty support of integrity policies is low, there is little chance of getting caught, and the penalties are not seen as significant.
Reasons for plagiarism: students are lazy (32%), concern about grades (29%), pressure to succeed (12%), ignorance of rules (9%), time pressure (5%)

Some of these issues are ones you can address in your course through your attitude toward integrity, information contained on the syllabus, class discussions, and the structure of assignments and exams. See below for more details.

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Indications of Plagiarism

References. If there are very few references, or they are to very obscure sources this may be an indication that the work is plagiarized. The presence of a few irrelevant references may be cause for concern. Mixed citation styles (some in APA style, others in MLA) may indicate that the student cut and pasted information from different sources. A paper that has no current references may have been around for a while.
Writing Style. Noticeable changes in the quality of the writing may indicate that a student wrote some of the paper and plagiarized some of it. Clear changes, not just in level but in style, tense, grammar, etc. can signal borrowed work. Watch out for use of foreign words (e.g., zeitgeist) that seem out of place.
Formatting. A paper with absent, abrupt or inappropriate transitions may have been cut and pasted. Headings that do not make sense are worth noting. Odd margins and paragraph structure is also cause for concern.
Paper Structure. Beware of papers that have sections that seem to have strayed from the assigned topic. This will be particularly noticeable if the assigned topic was relatively specific, making it difficult for a student to find a paper specifically on that topic.

Practical Ways to Encourage Academic Honesty

(Adapted from Academic Honesty Resources and Recommendations by Margaret Gunderson and Tanys Nelson, Educational Technologies at Missouri)

Include information in your syllabus about intellectual property and academic honesty. Go over that information with the class.

Sample syllabus statement regarding academic integrity: Academic honesty is fundamental to the activities and principles of a university. All members of the academic community must be confident that each person's work has been responsibly and honorably acquired, developed, and presented. Any effort to gain an advantage not given to all students is dishonest whether or not the effort is successful. The academic community regards academic dishonesty as an extremely serious matter, with serious consequences that range from probation to expulsion. When in doubt about plagiarism, paraphrasing, quoting, or collaboration, consult the course instructor.

Provide online resources that further explain the details (and examples) of plagiarism and adhering to copyright law. This is sometimes more meaningful at the time of the assignment.
Explain where and how you obtained your own online resources or examples.
Provide examples and discuss ways to cite resources.
Discuss the libraries’ role in helping access electronic reference materials.
Discuss the negative impact of online “paper mills” that allow students to purchase work instead of creating their own.
Indicate that you utilize search engines or software to detect plagiarism. If you suspect dishonesty you might:
- Conduct an exact phrase search using search engines such as Google or Altavista. Select a relatively unique four or five-word phrase from the paper.
- Employ commercial software that compares papers against large databases of existing papers. Examples include Plagiarism.org and EVE. Check to see if your department or college has paid for use of a particular site.
- Examine term paper sites. Search sites such as Termpapers.com.

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Ways to Prevent Plagiarism on Papers and Assignments

Paper topics. Do not use paper topics semester after semester. Change topics often. Provide students a list of possible topics to choose from. Require that students gain your approval for topics not on your list. Topics should be specific and unique enough that students are not able to easily find a paper on the topic.
Process Steps. Do not simply assign a paper at the beginning of the semester that is due at the end of the semester. Students may have very little experience in starting from scratch and writing a paper. They are also relatively unlikely to begin early enough to do a good job. Set a series of due dates throughout the semester for different parts of the paper. These might include selection of a topic, identification of initial sources, completion of an outline, writing of first draft, completion of final draft incorporating peer and/or instructor comments). Not only will this help them write the best paper possible, it will make it very difficult to plagiarize. If possible, assign course points for each of these products, not just for the final draft. If you choose not to do this, at least have students hand in their rough drafts, notes, index cards, etc. with the final draft.

Alternatively, require specific components. These might include: 1-2 sources published within the last year, an interview, a source you identify, a dataset, an annotated bibliography, etc.

Clear expectations. Make clear what you are looking for in the paper. Provide information on format, structure, style, footnotes, margins, etc. If it is important for you that students compare and contrast, list pros and cons, or discuss costs and benefits, be clear about this. Not only will this make it less likely that students will plagiarize, it will also make grading easier. Ask colleagues if your paper assignments are clear.
Collect papers during class and keep papers to compare future papers against.
Oral reports of papers. Having to stand up in front of a class will require students to be intimately familiar with their paper. Simply copying a paper will not provide the necessary level of familiarity.

Ways to Prevent Plagiarism on Examinations

Exam Questions

Instructors have two options with regard to test questions: write new questions for every administration or use questions multiple times.

Writing new questions for every administration allows for questions that match the presentation of material very well. If instructors use old questions but have changed their coverage of material, problems can arise when exams are given. However, when writing new questions each time some questions will not discriminate between students who know the information and those who do not (i.e., all students answer a question correctly or incorrectly), and others may be poorly worded or confusing.

Instructors can ask teaching assistants to write some questions. Many textbooks have companion test banks that can be useful, particularly with some editing. Having students write exam questions can be a useful study strategy for them and, often with a good deal of editing, can be a source of exam questions for instructors.

Using questions more than once has the benefit of allowing instructors to use questions that have been shown in the past to discriminate degrees of student learning. To do this, though, instructors must be scrupulous in ensuring that no student leaves the exam room with a copy of the exam. This is very difficult to do in large classes. Repeating questions for too long means that inevitably copies of the exam will get out and provide some students an unfair advantage.
If it is possible that some students have copies of old exams, make copies available for all students. The important point is that no student has an unfair advantage over others.

Exam Administration

When giving multiple choice exams consider using four versions. Scramble the questions and use different color test booklets. In the first row, have students alternate blue and green versions. In the second row, have students alternate pink and yellow versions. In the third row go back to using blue and green. When four versions are used like this, students to the left, right, front, and back of each student will have a different version of the exam. Be sure to tell students that they may not be sitting next to someone with the same colored exam booklet.

Insert answer sheets in each exam, and place a highlighter mark on each answer sheet that matches the color of the exam booklet. At the very beginning of the exam, ask students to be sure that the color of their test booklet matches the color of the highlighter mark on their answer sheet. This prevents students with a pink exam from copying from the yellow exam next to them and then turning their answer sheet in as if they had a yellow exam booklet.

Ask students to remove baseball hats and headphones. Have them close all books and be sure everything is far enough under their chair that nothing is within view or them or students sitting around them. Check to see that any information stored in the memory of their calculator is cleared.
Be sure all cell phones are out of sight. Students have received unfair advantage by receiving information through text messaging
Be very intentional about keeping exams, grades, etc. locked up. Find out where your exams are copied and be sure that there is integrity in this process.
Have enough proctors that students feel like they might be seen if they engage in dishonest behavior.
If possible have students sit in assigned seats. Check IDs if feasible to ensure that students have not sent another student in their place. Have students keep their ID on their desk as they are taking the test so that they can be checked randomly.
When using bluebooks collect them as students arrive and hand them out again randomly before the exam.

Exam Grading

On essay and short answer exams, place a slash through any unused answer space. If using a true-false exam, circle the correct answer if the student did not.
Photocopy exams before returning them, or indicate to students that you may do this.
Students taking make-up exams should not be allowed to take the same exam as those who took it at the originally scheduled time.

What to do if you Suspect a Student of Academic Dishonesty

Notify the course director or your department chair, and discuss the situation
Ask the student to meet with you to discuss your concerns. Do not be accusatory. Probe the student for relevant information. If you suspect a student simply turned in a paper written by someone else ask questions such as, “The paper by Smith sounds interesting. Where did you come across it?” Ask students to bring in copies of the sources. If there are particularly esoteric elements of the paper ask students to clarify these concepts or ask them to indicate what they were thinking when they chose to include these things. Ask course director, department chair to attend the meeting
If you are not satisfied that the student turned in his/her own work, follow one of the two options spelled out in Article VI of the Faculty Handbook

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For More Information on Academic Integrity:

Online Resources

Academic Honesty Resources and Recommendations by Margaret Gunderson and Tanys Nelson, Educational Technologies at Missouri.

Detecting and avoiding plagiarism: The WPA statement on best practices.

Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Print Resources

Harris, R. A., & Lockman, V. (2001). The Plagiarism Handbook: Strategies for Preventing, Detecting, and Dealing With Plagiarism. Los Angeles: Pyrczak.

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Contributed by Alan Strathman (Residential Instruction Associate Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences) and Michael Prewitt (Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, Provost’s Office).