Transcript Academic Integrity: Some Ethical Issues

Academic Integrity:
Some Ethical Issues
Academic Integrity Workshop
University of San Diego
January 26, 2005
Lawrence M. Hinman, Ph.D.
University of San Diego
7/18/2015
Director, The Values Institute
©Lawrence M. Hinman
1
Overview






Introduction
What’s Wrong with Cheating?
Three P’s of Academic Integrity
A Culture of Integrity
Expanding the Horizons
Web resources
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
2
Introduction

My own involvement in:
– The Fundamental Values project
– Web-based plagiarism

Fundamental conviction: If students
don’t learn integrity now, there’s no
hope that they will learn it later—and
the consequences are Enron,
WorldCom, political
misrepresentation, etc.
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
3
What’s Wrong with Cheating
Five approaches:
 A Kantian analysis: not playing by the
rules
 A Consequentialist analysis: cheating
hurts other people
 A Virtues analysis: cheating as a violation
of personal integrity
 Feminist ethics: cheating as a violation of
relationships
 Multicultural ethics: cheating and cultural
values
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
4
A Kantian Analysis


Cheating is not
playing by the
rules
Understand
cheating as a
form of
deception
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
5
A Consequentialist Analysis



Cheating is wrong
because it hurts other
people (Bernie Gert)
Myth: cheaters only
cheat themselves
Reality: cheaters often
get
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
6
A Virtues Approach



Virtues necessary
for flourishing
Cheating is a
weakness of
character
Deception cuts us
off from others
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
7
Feminist Perspectives


No single feminist
perspective, but certain
distinctive themes
Cheating is a disruption
of a relationship:
– Between teacher and
student
– Among students
– Between students and
parents

The challenge: restoring
the relationship
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
8
Multicultural Perspectives


Conflicting values:
honesty, loyalty, duty
to parents
What counts as
cheating in the U.S.
might not be perceived
in the same way in
home country
– Compare bribery

U.S. viewed as
dominating country
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
9
Three P’s of Academic Integrity
The three P’s:
 Prevention
 Policing
 Punishment
Depends on point of intervention in the
process:
Before
7/18/2015
During
©Lawrence M. Hinman
After
10
Prevention
Better teaching
 Cheating often arises in a vacuum
 Good teaching reduces the likelihood
of those vacuums
Better exams and assignments
 Individualized paper topics
 Rough drafts, outlines, oral
presentations of papers
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
11
Policing


Proctoring exams
TurnItIn.com
– Often effective
– Similar to urine testing for athletes
– High cost, and the costs don’t
contribute to better teaching
– Surveillance society
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
12
Punishment



The challenge is to find ways of making
punishment something that will help the
offender.
Often, for the professor, the challenge is
finding a way of staying connected with
the student while still imposing
punishment or reporting the offense.
Importance of reconciliation
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
13
A Culture of Integrity




If we fail to establish an environment of
integrity, it becomes reasonable for
students to cheat.
We want to avoid a situation in which
honest students are disadvantaged by
their honesty and dishonest students get
ahead.
Fundamental values: honesty, trust,
respect, fairness, and responsibility,
Direct link between academic integrity and
honesty in business and politics, where
often lack of integrity seems the norm.
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
14
Expanding the Definition of
Academic Integrity
All-too-easy to cast stones. We should look at ourselves, not
just our students. Additional areas of concern:
 Faculty model integrity for students
 Fair grading and letters of recommendation
 Treating students with respect
 Establishing a climate of trust
 Faculty violations of trust relationship with students
 Responsible for excellence in course content
 Faculty evaluations of each other for RRT
 Academic misconduct by faculty
 Downloading music on school networks
 Favored treatment of athletes
 Academic integrity in distance education
 School administrators and teachers cheating to raise
student scores in K-12
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
15
Web Resources
This presentation:
 http://ethics.sandiego.edu/presentati
ons/USD/AcademicIntegrity2005/
Ethics Updates resources:
 http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Resources
/AcademicIntegrity/Index.html
7/18/2015
©Lawrence M. Hinman
16