Category: integrity

The Journey Begins…Sidetracked by an Unwelcome Foe

The start of the college academic semester is a time for new beginnings and excitement. New courses. New students. The euphoria that comes from efforts to facilitate learning for a new group of students. And unfortunately, the reality sets in again that not every student is in the course to learn. Many students are in the course because it is mandatory and to get a grade; regardless of whether they’ve learned anything.

In his article, Cheating is Hard Work , Isaac Sweeney reminds me that cheating and plagiarism are still alive and well in academia. His article confirms my own past and recent experience: two students in my Executive MBA class this winter cheated on a quiz. Frustrating, but not surprising.

Despite those instances, I still look forward to the new semester!Flower in Florida

Can I see your ID card please? Our President who is Black….

I happened to turn on the news yesterday morning and watched in amazement while President Obama released additional birth certificate documents. 

It is disheartening to see that important issues, among those, helping students develop skills to become critical thinkers so that they can help manage issues now and in the future, have been disregarded by media figures who persist in attacking the president through subtle and not so subtle challenges to the President’s bona fides.  It smacks of the type of racism that is most difficult to combat-racism that is covered in a veneer of civility. The following video from Rachel Maddow’s show The racist roots of ‘birtherism.‘

I hope that this is the end of challenges to President Obama’s bona fides. It is a very frustrating and sobering look at education’s failure to educate media and the public about a true critical analysis and debate.

Semester Woes

This semester has been a quite exciting semester. I’ve enjoyed speaking with students about some of my favorite topics (sports & law & legal issues).

However, reality has reared its head. I’ve encountered at least two instances of cheating on quizzes.  It’s amazing and frustrating to find that some students do not share the same joy of learning that I do.

Integrity in Professional Sports

football[Integrity in other contexts:] This post does not directly relate to online teaching or how people learn. However, I’m a sports fan and I teach a sports marketing law course, so I’m going to create a connection here (whether one exists or not!)

The Denver Broncos were fined for illegally videotaping a portion of the 49ers October 30 practice, before the two teams were to meet. Why is that noteworthy? It’s noteworthy because Josh McDaniels, the Broncos’ coach, was the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots during the years that Belichick, coach of the Patriots, regularly videotaped others teams. In addition, shortly after Belichick’s fine and loss of draft picks, Bob Kraft, owner of the team, signed Belichick to a long term contract deal.

How does this relate to integrity? Rules violations are normally interpreted to violate ethical principles relating to fairness and the duty to follow the law (depending on which ethical approach you take). If the NFL rules prohibit videotaping other teams’ practices and prohibit videotaping coaching signals during the game, those who do not play by the rules can gain a competitive advantage by their breach of those rules.  (See this rules’ summary in Mayer v. Belichick) This also means that the owner’s support of the conduct can help create an environment that rules violations are acceptable as long as the team wins [and the violations are not caught for a long time].

How does this relate to how people learn? People learn, in part, by following the examples that their leaders set. The NFL’s policy has teeth only to the extent that those who violate those rules are subject to punishment that are sufficient to deter the conduct. In addition, the NFL’s policy has teeth only to the extent that the NFL can negate the lesson taught to assistants (e.g. McDaniels) who learn from coaches (e.g. Belichick) and owners (e.g. Kraft) that ethics violations do not matter as long as the team wins.

In this instance, the videotaping was done by a member of the Bronco’s staff who, apparently, told McDaniels and McDaniels refused to watch the videotape. However, the NFL rules require reporting of  such conduct and McDaniels did not. If you assume that McDaniels did not watch the videotape, at the very least he did violate the NFL rules. However, the lessons he learned from the leadership of his prior team did not demonstrate integrity for that particular rule and thus McDaniels seemed to follow that similar rule-ignoring approach.

[Relationship to this blog and its topics: ]If we’re trying to encourage learners to act with integrity, it’s difficult and frustrating when those in the public eye do not also do so. And that’s this post’s connection to integrity and how people learn.

Cheating Using Publisher’s Test Banks-An Update

Part of course redesign includes re-evaluating test questions and re-evaluating the value of standardized tests, especially in online courses.

This blog entry notes that using publisher test banks made it easier for students to cheat. This is nothing new…I’m sure you’ve heard of frat house libraries where members of fraternities have access to previous exams. How do they get them?

1. Each frat member memorizes a couple of questions and copies them down

2.Each frat member removes one page of the test

3. Someone steals a test (e.g. when extra copies are distributed down the rows)

High tech versions:

1. Copying and pasting the test questions

2. Taking the test with 2 computers open (one to take the test, the other to copy the test questions)

3.Using cell phones to take screen shots

4. Using screen capture programs to take screen shots

5. Texting answers to each other

I am sure you can think of more.

Should we (instructors) function as the “cheating police” and stop this from occurring? My answer is YES!  We should try to maintain as much fairness in test conditions as possible. In a later post, I’ll talk about some of the ways we can do that.

Academic Integrity-Cheating on Online Exams

I’m participating in a Sloan-C course on academic integrity in online courses. There have been wonderful suggestions and resources and I’ll post some of those here.

It is disheartening, though, that cheating is endemic on college campuses–up to 60-70%! It shouldn’t be surprising; after all we see examples of it in government and business conduct, but it’s still frustrating to see so much.

One clear point that’s made during this course is that academic integrity has been an issue long before online education began. I’ve stated that before and I’ll probably reiterate that point: we should do what we can as educators to help guide learning in a way that lessens the ability to cheat.

Academic Integrity

I’m attending an online class taught through Sloan-C on Academic Integrity in online classes.

I’m learning a great deal, and thought I’d pass on a couple of items.

One is that even those using online discussion boards should take care to change assignments every semester. According to Melissa Ott, who wrote this article:Seven Strategies for Plagiarism-proofing Discussion Threads in Online Courses http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no2/olt_0609.pdf, there are websites where students can purchase answers to discussion board questions, e.g. www.studentoffortune.com . The site calls them tutorials, but students can get answers there.

A second, which I knew already, was to be sure to either use huge test banks or value objective questions as a relatively small percentage of a student’s overall grade in an online course.

A third is to introduce academic integrity into an online course through a letter to students. I think I’ll do that for face to face and online courses.