Perspectives on Academic Integrity

1
Perspectives on Academic Integrity

• Cases and Implications for Fostering
• Ethical Decision Making
• Ellen L. Landgraf, PhD., CPA, Associate Professor
• Loyola University Chicago
• elandgr_at_luc.edu

2
An Unexpected Find

• Students were to submit Writing Assignments
  via Blackboard. There is no expectation that
  students will not discuss these assignments with
  each other, yet they are explicitly told to
  submit their own assignment. While answering
  e-mails, the instructor encounters the following
• Dear Professor Wonderful,
• My Writing Assignment 2 is attached is
  attached-I hope that it is ok that I e-mailed it
  to you instead of submitting it on Blackboard.
• John Doe

3
An Unexpected Find (Cont.)

• The professor proceeds to open the attachment
  (making a mental note to stress once again to
  students (even though it is clearly indicated on
  the syllabus) that these assignments are to be
  submitted via Blackboard.
• While printing up the attachment an information
  box pops up-

4
An Unexpected Find (Cont.)

Now printing Mary_Smith.doc..
The professor then views Mary Smiths submission
on Blackboard it is exactly the same as John
Does.
5
The Fraud Triangle
6
An Unexpected Find (Discussion)

• What would you do?
• What implications does technology have for
  academic integrity issues?
• Does your schools academic integrity policy
  cover this?

7
Later that semester

• Professor Wonderful has to attend a meeting of
  the Ethics Committee of her State CPA society and
  has arranged to have her Mid-Term Exam proctored.
  

8
The First Mid-Term

• She has taken the following precautions
• 2 versions of the exam have been prepared and
  numbered-they are to be distributed even/odd.
• Multiple choice questions are the same yet the
  responses have been reordered on the two
  versions.
• For the one problem requiring computations, the
  numbers have been changed dramatically.

9
The First Mid-Term (Cont.)

• In grading the exam, she finds that one student
  has given all of the correct answers to the wrong
  version of the exam on one particular page. This
  page contains the problem which requires simple
  calculations and then conclusions based on those
  computations. Certainly she is mistaken and
  doubles back-

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The First Mid-Term (Cont.)

• No-she is correct-
• the student (John Doe) has in fact supplied the
  correct computational answers to the version of
  the exam that he did not have. His exam was 17.
• She then checked exam 18 (same page) to her
  amazement it contained the exact same
  computational answers as exam 17 (as well as
  conclusions) and belonged to Mary Smith.
• Marys computational answers were correct for the
  version of the exam she had taken.

11
The First Mid-Term-Discussion

• What would you do?
• Does your schools academic integrity policy
  cover this?
• What should happen to John? Mary?

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Summary of IssuesPotential Discussion Points

• Prevalence of cheating as part of culture-in
  business, academia, sports, politics
• Do students rationalize academic dishonesty or do
  they just not know what is wrong?
• What new issues in academic integrity are raised
  by the internet and technology?
• Do we ignore the situation? Do students perceive
  that we do?
• Are faculty equipped to deal with academic
  integrity issues?

13
Enhancing Academic Integrity Potential Discussion
Points

• Are Honor Codes, Ethics Exams effective?
• Best Practices
• Preventative/detective controls
• ?