Academic Honesty & Plagiarism: Resources

Stories about ethical issues at universities make headlines every day. From sexual violence to racial conflict, from the treatment of adjuncts to cheating, students, professors, and administrators face countless ethical trials. And yet, very few resources exist to assist universities in developing an ethical culture. University Ethics addresses this challenge. Each chapter studies a facet of university life--including athletics, gender, faculty accountability, and more--highlights the ethical hotspots, explains why they occur, and proposes best practices. Professional ethics are a key component of training for numerous other fields, such as business management, medicine, law, and journalism, but there is no prescribed course of study for the academy. Professors and administrators are not trained in standards for evaluating papers, colleagues, boundaries, or contracts. University Ethics not only examines the ethical problems that colleges face one by one but proposes creating an integrated culture of ethics university-wide that fosters the institution's mission and community. In an environment plagued by university scandals, University Ethics is essential reading for anyone connected to higher education today.

Nearly three-quarters of college students cheat during their undergraduate careers, a startling number attributed variously to the laziness of today's students, their lack of a moral compass, or the demands of a hypercompetitive society. For James Lang, cultural or sociological explanations like these are red herrings. His provocative new research indicates that students often cheat because their learning environments give them ample incentives to try--and that strategies which make cheating less worthwhile also improve student learning. Cheating Lessons is a practical guide to tackling academic dishonesty at its roots. Drawing on an array of findings from cognitive theory, Lang analyzes the specific, often hidden features of course design and daily classroom practice that create opportunities for cheating. Courses that set the stakes of performance very high, that rely on single assessment mechanisms like multiple-choice tests, that have arbitrary grading criteria: these are the kinds of conditions that breed cheating. Lang seeks to empower teachers to create more effective learning environments that foster intrinsic motivation, promote mastery, and instill the sense of self-efficacy that students need for deep learning. Although cheating is a persistent problem, the prognosis is not dire. The good news is that strategies which reduce cheating also improve student performance overall. Instructors who learn to curb academic dishonesty will have done more than solve a course management problem--they will have become better educators all around.