What, who, where, how? Academic integrity in Australian universities?

Julianne East (La Trobe)Ruth Walker (Wollongong)

AALL conference, University of South Australia 24-25th November 2011

overviewThis workshop shares some of the findings from the ongoing ALTC project and seeks your input. We plan to:

• give an overview of the project and findings• walk through our analysis of academic integrity

policies• trial case studies to test alignment of universities’

academic integrity policies and practice• discuss teaching and learning resources and

dissemination strategies.

background

• discussion with the Asia Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity (APFEI)

• team awarded an ALTC priority project Academic integrity standards: aligning policy and practice in Australian higher education 2010-2012

research questions• what are the range of policies and procedures for

academic integrity in Australian universities?• how do they respond to academic integrity

breaches? • what is good practice in aligning policy with teaching

and learning?• how do you foster academic integrity culture?

project stages

Stage 1: analysis of 39 Australian university academic integrity policies

Stage 2: breach data collection and analysis at 6 universities

Stage 3: student survey, focus groups and interviews with academic integrity stakeholders at 6 universities

Stage 4: drafting of exemplars, development and dissemination of teaching and learning resources

project stages

Stage 1: analysis of 39 Australian university academic integrity policies

Stage 2: online student surveyStage 3: focus groups and interviews with stakeholdersStage 4: drafting of exemplarsStage 5: development and dissemination of teaching and

learning resources

academic integrity policyWe identified 5 core elements of exemplary policy in

our analysis of 39 Australian university policiesWe found:

– despite a focus on ‘misconduct’ there is a move to instill scholarly values rather than focus on punitive elements;

– inconsistency in information about academic integrity and how universities say they will respond to breaches.

(see the Bretag et al 2011 AuQF paper for more details)

policy analysis

Many policies lacked basic information relating to types of breaches and associated outcomes/penalties.

• only 44% provided details relating to severity of breaches (minor/major)

• most breaches were not defined • in 18% no breach outcomes were stated

Access: easy to locate, read, concise, comprehensible.

Approach: statement of purpose with educative focus up front and all through policy.

Responsibility: details responsibilities for all stakeholders.

Detail: extensive but not excessive description of breaches, outcomes and processes.

Support: proactive and embedded systems to enable implementation of the policy

5 core elements

different policy approaches

• What is the purpose of a university’s policy on academic integrity:– regulatory or educational ?

• What are the rhetorical claims of policies, and what do they actually do?

policy approach

Regulatory (procedural and legalistic)• student compliance and restraint

Educational (academic integrity as something to be learnt):

• student understanding and competence

reactive = in reaction to breachesproactive = action taken to avoid breaches

first impressions of policy keywords sample A• Academic misconduct• Faculty misconduct

committee• Misconduct• Plagiarism• Research misconduct• Serious misconduct offence• Serious misconduct tribunal• Simple misconduct offences• University community

 

sample B• Academic apprenticeship• Academic integrity• Academic misconduct• Acknowledgement• Bibliography• Central database• Collaboration• Collusion• Common knowledge• Paraphrasing• Plagiarism• Procedural fairness• Reference list• Student advisor

activity 1You have been given extracts from the preambles

of 3 international universities’ academic integrity policies.

Would you evaluate the purpose of these polices from the preambles as:

• regulatory, educational, or something else…?

This activity and these texts were taken from a workshop given by Jude Carroll, Dan Wueste & Teddi Fishman ‘Triangulating plagiarism, cheating and deception’ given at the 5th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity, UWA, Sep 26 – 28, 2011

your own university policy?

• When was the last time you looked at your own university’s academic integrity policy?

• Can you remember - where did you find it? is it easy to access?

• Who does the policy address: students, staff, the university community as a whole?

our analysisOur research showed that:• 6 of the 39 Australian universities (15%) had policies

which were very difficult to locate.• 28% of Australian universities had a mixed approach

– both educative and punitive, rather than a consistent educative approach .

• Only 1 Australian university said that academic integrity is everyone’s responsibility.

activity 2You have been given a sample Australian university policy. See if you can answer the questions on the handout:

1. What sort of approach does your policy have? Is it regulatory, educational or something else?

2. Is it reactive/ punitive/ proactive? Is it consistent?3. Who is responsible for academic according to the policy?4. Are the responsibilities of the institution, staff and students explicit?5. Can you find easily a statement about how and why the university

supports academic integrity?6. Are there strategies and mechanisms to inform and educate students? 7. Are there strategies for staff engagement and development?

Access: easy to locate, read, concise, comprehensible.

Approach: statement of purpose with educative focus up front and all through policy.

Responsibility: details responsibilities for all stakeholders.

Detail: extensive but not excessive description of breaches, outcomes and processes.

Support: proactive and embedded systems to enable implementation of the policy

assess the 5 core elements

activity 3Imagine that you are:

A: a very new teacher to your university and have come across a student who you think has plagiarised

or B. A new student at your university and want to find

out how to avoid breaching academic integrity

Now look at the policy in front of you. What does it tell you to do? Is it useful?

questions about best practiceIf a policy did identify who is responsible and took an

educational approach to academic integrity:

1. what do you think would be the most effective educational strategy?

2. what kind of support have you been able to give or would you like to give?

3. what tools could universities develop to self evaluate their own policy and its enactment?

case studiesRather than relying on rules, case studies are an

effective resource for decision making about ethical problems (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994)

The ALTC project team are developing some scenarios

to test academic integrity policy and practice.

activity 4 In small groups review a sample ‘case study’ on an

academic integrity issue.

1. Review this case study - could you use scenarios like this for teaching about academic integrity?

2. What other scenarios have you experienced and that you think might be useful to help test the alignment of your university’s policy with practice?

conclusion

Our final questions:

• what did you get from this discussion?• what more would be useful to foster a culture of

academic integrity?• what kind of resources would be useful at your

university?

some academic integrity resources

http://www.apfei.edu.au/

JISC

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/academic-integrity

referencesAsia Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity (APFEI) (2010). What is educational integrity?

http://apfei.edu.au/tiki-index.php [viewed 25 June 2010]Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) (2010). Audits: Universities

http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityaudit/universities/ [viewed 28 February 2010]Beauchamp, T., & Childress, J. (1994). Principles of biomedical ethics (4th ed.). New York: Oxford

University Press.Bertram Gallant, T. (Ed) (2011). Creating the ethical academy: a systems approach to

understanding misconduct and empowering change in higher education, New York: Routledge.

Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., East, J., Green, M., James, C., McGowan, U., Partridge, L., Walker, R. & Wallace, M. (2011). Academic Integrity Standards: A Preliminary Analysis of the Academic Integrity Policies at Australian Universities. Refereed paper presented at the Australian Universities Quality Forum, 29 June – 1 July, Melbourne, Australia.

Bretag, T., Walker, R., Green, M., Wallace, M., East, J., James, C., McGowan, U., & Partridge, L. (2010). Academic integrity standards: Aligning policy and practice in Australian universities, Successful proposal to the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, Priority Projects, Round 2.

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referencesCarroll J, Wueste D & Fishman T (2011) ‘Triangulating plagiarism, cheating and deception’ given at the 5th Asia

Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity, UWA, Sep 26 – 28Higher Education Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service (2011a). Policy works: recommendations for

reviewing policy to manage unacceptable academic practice in higher education, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/academicintegrity/policy_works [viewed 24 May 2011]

Higher Education Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service (2011b). Supporting academic integrity: Approaches and resources for higher education, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/academicintegrity/SupportingAcademicIntegrity_v2.pdf [viewed 24 May 2011].

Macdonald, R. & Carroll, J. (2006). Plagiarism – a complex issue requiring a holistic institutional approach, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(3), 233-245

McGowan U, Walker R and Wallace M ‘Evaluating educational approaches to academic integrity in Australian university policies’ given at the 5th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity, UWA, Sep 26 – 28

Higher Education Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service (2011a). Policy works

Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, an initiative of the Australian

Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The views expressed by this project

and in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd.