Promoting Academic Honesty
Faculty can play a tremendously important role both in fostering a culture of academic honesty and in discouraging breaches. This can be accomplished by using a combination of “ethics,” “prevention,” and “monitoring and enforcement” based approaches (McNabb & Olmsted, 2009) that include efforts to promote the characteristics that exemplify academic honesty (i.e. honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility), efforts that make it difficult to engage in such breaches in academic honesty, and efforts that identify breaches in academic honesty and to sanction those who engage in such breaches, respectively. Although it would be wrong to minimize the role that monitoring and enforcement play in promoting academic honesty, it is important to note that a more intense focus on the role that ethics and prevention play in promoting academic honesty reduces the need to rely on the measures that ‘catch’ student’s breaches.
Although the most direct impact may be felt within one’s individual courses, the importance of academic honesty can extend beyond the individual classroom into the larger Centennial College community. Implementing strategies that encompass a combination of these three approaches collectively act to educate students about academic honesty, to note its importance in a student’s personal, academic, and future professional life, as well as to recognise the consequences of engaging in academically dishonest behaviour.
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Additional Resources
The following provides a list of resources so that faculty may view additional sources that focus on various aspects of academic honesty.
Centennial College “Promoting Academic Honesty” authored by the Center for Academic Excellence and Program Quality.
Faculty Focus’ Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education – This free report features nine articles from Distance Education Report that will give you the latest techniques and technologies for mitigating cheating and other unethical behaviors in your online courses.
University of Waterloo’s Centre for Teaching Excellence “Encouraging Academic Integrity Online” – This website provides a collection of pedagogical-related and practical tips directed towards online teaching.
Carleton University’s “Academic Integrity: An Instructor’s Guide” – This handbook provides a comprehensive guide to academic honesty, geared specifically for faculty. Topics include ways for faculty to both promote academic honesty and to reduce opportunities for academically dishonest behaviour.
Humber College’s “Learning Continuity Toolkit” – Provides suggestions for how to create and deliver online final tests, with an emphasis on academic honesty considerations.
Ryerson University’s Academic Integrity Office – Provides tips for both prevention and detection of academically dishonest behaviour. Sources McNabb, L. & A. Olmsted. (2009). Communities of integrity in online courses: Faculty member beliefs & strategies. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching,5 (2). Retrieved from: http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no2/mcnabb_0609.pdf
Sources
McNabb, L. & A. Olmsted. (2009). Communities of integrity in online courses: Faculty member beliefs & strategies. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching,5 (2). Retrieved from: (opens a pdf) http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no2/mcnabb_0609.pdf