Practical things to try

The idea of tackling issues of academic integrity really need to be broken down into proactive measures to do before your class starts, things to do within your class, and then what to do and what to expect when there is a violation. So first, what can you do proactively? What can you do when you’re setting up your class, before your class even begins? I have three different things that I would encourage you to do.

First, you need to investigate what policies and procedures are in place at your institution. What are you supposed to do if you think there’s been a violation? What support do you have if there is a situation in your classroom? Even if you’ve been at the same institution for many years, it’s very important to refresh your memory about what the policies and procedures are at your institution, how you report things, and what support you have.

The second thing that you should do is reflect on academic integrity. Reflect on why is it important to you as an individual, as a professor, and also, why is it important for your students, in your classroom, but then also in the profession that they are actually studying to be and attempting to enter. This reflection is key and necessary for you to be able to have the conversation with your students and share some of your thoughts, once the class actually begins.

The third thing that you need to do proactively is examine your assignments and your assignment guidelines. As you plan your course, you have a chance to look at the different types of assessments that you’re using. You can verify that your assessments are assessing their knowledge of the material, as well as examine what the assessment guidelines are, so they know what you’re expecting of them.

I encourage you also to look at your assessment design, and work with people in your teaching and learning centers or other resources on your campus to build assessments that actually can deter cheating. Now, once a class begins, there’s one major thing that I encourage you to do, and that is to have a conversation with your students about academic integrity. I’ve talked about this already, that regular, early, and continual conversations about academic integrity do help in deterring violations.

Bill Taylor was a Professor of Political Science at Oakton Community College, and he wrote now a famous letter to his students about academic integrity. Professor Taylor does a good job explaining that the culture of integrity in the classroom is not just on his shoulders, and it’s not just on the shoulders of his students. It’s everybody in the classroom must come to the university and come to his class with a high level of integrity. I encourage you to take a look at his letter to see the examples of what he has provided and what he is talking to his students about.

At my own institution, Kansas State University, the brand of my office is “A family built on trust,” with the U-S in the word trust highlighted. Our institution strives to be very family-oriented, and a family-like community. And we realise, and we really attempt to convey, that to have that culture of integrity, it’s not just our faculty members holding our students accountable, but every person at the institution plays a role. As you hopefully reflected about academic integrity and what it means to you and the future professions of your students before the class, is very important for you to share that with your students.

For instance, I’ve received academic integrity violations of a student plagiarising material, as they are attempting to learn proper landing procedures in a professional pilot program. In this situation, it’s very easy to see how the lack of integrity could be very detrimental and life-threatening if the student were actually in a position to actually attempt to land that plane. It is important for students to see and hear examples from you about why integrity matters beyond the four walls of your actual classroom.

Now, as I’ve mentioned, violations will still occur. Even if you have been very proactive, there will always be something that comes up. And so it’s important to know, what do you do when a student has had a violation? Again, there’s three things that I would encourage you to do. The first is I want you to recognise your own feelings. When I talk with professors and faculty and educators about what they think after a violation has occurred, they often explain to me their range of emotions.

Sometimes they will feel hurt, disappointed, disrespected, frustrated, or angry, and it’s okay to have those emotions and those feelings. So you as an educator have put a lot of time and energy into your course, and you expect that the students are going to put time and energy into doing the assignments. And when they take the shortcut or take an easy way out, it does hurt, but it is very important that you recognise those emotions and you’re able to control those emotions before you actually have those conversations with the students.

And that’s the second thing that I would recommend that you do, is have that conversation with the student. From the student development perspective, this conversation is really the first stage of education of the student. It’s important to explain the reasons or facts of why you are alleging that something did occur. What did you see? What did you hear? When you were grading the test, why did you think something was off? But it’s important to give that student the opportunity to tell his or her side of the story, as well.

I encourage you to make it very clear to the student that although they might’ve made a poor choice, that does not mean that they’re a bad person. On my departmental website, we actually have a very good resource for how to have those conversations with students. And so I encourage you to take a look at it because it does break down how you can interact with a student, how you can start those tough conversations, and then how you can help your student learn through this process.

And the final tip for what you should do when a violation does occur in your classroom is to hold students accountable. Because you did the proactive measures of investigating and understanding what type of policies and procedures were at your institution, you know what you need to do when an alleged violation occurs in your class. It is very important to follow those procedures and policies. It does set an example for other students.

Even though in many cases, you will never mention to the other students in the class that you’ve reported somebody for a violation or that you’ve done something, the students will find out. Students do talk, and students will learn that you do take academic integrity very seriously. So to tackle those ideas of academic integrity, if you’re very proactive, if you work in your classroom while the students are there talking about it, and then when violations do occur, you follow the policies and procedures, have those conversations, then that’s going to help you in future classes, as well.