Academic Honesty – Rubric Standard I.3
Ah, yes…academic honesty. No doubt, if you teach (online or in a campus classroom), you’ve had to deal with issues of academic dishonesty at some point or another. I’ve had three cases of student plagiarism/copied work to handle this semester in my online classes. I always feel sick to my stomach when I discover it! Fortunately, most students take responsibility for their actions—-a few, of course, fight it tooth and nail. Having academic honesty issues and consequences addressed clearly in the online classroom can certainly help to prevent potential problems.
LSC peer review standard I.3 states: Expectations regarding academic honesty, including plagiarism concerns, are clearly stated in the instructor’s course syllabus.
At a minimum, in order to meet this standard, the following statement must appear on an LSC course syllabus: Charges of academic misconduct will be brought to the attention of the student and disciplinary actions will be taken. See the Lake Superior College Student Code of Conduct for further details http://www.lsc.edu/Policy/policy3_6_1.cfm
It’s never a bad idea to have information addressing this issue in multiple areas of the class. On every class assignment I remind students that they are to use their own words, use original examples, etc. Some students really struggle with not lifting sentences or phrases directly from the textbook or other class resources. Extra reminders can’t hurt! In addition to the Code of Conduct mentioned above, this is what I have on my syllabi: All responses to assignment questions must be original. Turning in an assignment written (wholly or partially) by someone else is considered plagiarism. Taking someone else’s words without documenting the author is considered plagiarism. Copied work will not be tolerated and will earn zero points and a possible F for the class. Many LSC online instructors have course orientation quizzes that incorporate academic honesty policies in them. If you do something other than what is listed above, I’d love to hear about it!
Our Virtual Campus distributed an excellent brochure this fall which included quite detailed information about academic honesty policies on our campus: http://www.lsc.edu/Fall%202006%20Brochure1.pdf
