Prevalence of cheating encouraged by lack of faculty responsibility, campus culture.

Brian Heuser, lecturer in international education and public policy, has spent the last five years monitoring the self-reported academic integrity habits of Vanderbilt students.

The results of his study are not unremarkable, but perhaps not what students looking for trends want to hear, he said.

"We have seen very little fluctuation in student reporting in personally witnessing incidences," he said. "In some cases, we have seen a decline."

The study asked students about the cheating they have witnessed rather than what they have done. Heuser said he has found that students will often factor what they have done in the way they form their own perceptions.

In 2008, 15.6 percent of students reported witnessing plagiarism of some kind, 22 percent witnessed cheating of some kind and 36.6 percent of students witnessed unauthorized sharing of information of some kind. These numbers have not changed significantly in the past five years, Heuser explained.
Similarly, Director of Student Conduct Daniel Swinton, who advises the Honor Council, offered data on the number of cases heard by the student-led group. The information also showed no real increase in the last six years save an unexplained dip during the 2004-2005 school year, he said.

Addressing a complex problem

But while the data shows no real increase or decrease, the numbers paired with statistics provided by the Honor Council, Swinton says, show cheating is an important issue on campus.

"If students are witnessing 10 or 15 percent of students cheating, then that is a problem," he said.

Heuser said the key to a strong academic Honor Code goes beyond the Honor Council and students.

Swinton agreed, saying the university should see low and consistent reports of cheating in the report as a positive, but any cheating is an issue that needsto be dealt with on campus.

"Cheating happens," said senior Matthew Specht, outgoing organizational vice president of the Honor Council. "I don't think there is rampant cheating across campus."

The question for a lot of students and faculty, though, is who is responsible for enforcing the Honor Code.

According to the Honor Code, the system should work so that students and professors enforce and the Honor Council prosecutes.

Students may not be responsible for turning students into the Honor Council - though they are encouraged - but some action, perhaps in an expression of disapproval, is expected, he said.

Need to work together

Research Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Tim Holman agreed, saying he thinks ideally the process should work so each factor works together.

"Students have a responsibility to read the Honor Code and abide by its rules," Holman said. "Professors have a responsibility to enforce the Honor Code by taking reasonable steps to prevent academic misconduct in their classes.

"The Honor Council has a responsibility to make certain that students are aware of the Honor Code, and that it is applied in a fair and uniform manner," he said.

Faculty responsibility currently overlooked

Heuser identifies similar points on ensuring academic integrity. He offers four points that allow the system to work. He believes Vanderbilt is strong in three of the areas: a comprehensive Honor Code, an Honor Council charged with enforcement and an Office of Student Conduct to represent the institution.
He worries that faculty monitoring and reporting of violations is a weak point in the process.

He said while students are asked to report incidences of cheating, in the end, professors are the ones who have to ensure that students are not breaking rules.

"The No. 1 reason students cheat is because they think they can get away with it. And the No. 1 reason they think they can get away with it is because faculty won't turn them in," Heuser said.

Heuser said the reality is that students do not think faculty will turn them in because 90 percent of the time they do not.

"Faculty are on the front lines," Heuser said. "They are the ones giving the assignments and grading the assignments. Faculty must take the time to know whether the learning is happening."

He said professors should take measures to make the process not only less tempting but also more difficult.

"Oftentimes the cry for doing more comes from the faculty," he said. "But if there is a breakdown it is ironically the same source that raises the issue."

Cheating arms race between students, faculty

Programs like SafeAssignment allow professors to make sure students are not plagiarizing, but still require effort on the professors' parts, Lecturer of Education Andrew Van Schaack said. Even still, the program that offers up a raw percentage score can allow professors to pinpoint areas of question in student papers. There is no easy way to monitor students, but it has to be done, he explained.

Van Schaack said he takes the raw score offered by the program, looks through it, and decided then whether or not the passage in question is worth discussing with a student.

"These tools are good, but they aren't fool proof," Heuser said.

Punishment process too complicated

Even after students are caught, Van Schaack said, there is more to the process.

"If I am a professor and I have seen a student cheat, I have several options," Van Schaack said. "I can ignore it, have a stern discussion with them, lower their letter grade on the assignment or give them a zero on the assignment."
But for a stronger punishment, the professor has to turn the student into the Honor Council, which can be a long and frustrating process, he said.

"I can take the student to the Honor Council," Van Schaack said. "But there is no guarantee that the student will be found guilty."

Van Schaack said he would not be surprised if the actual process becomes a deterrent for some professors.

Heuser cited other reasons for what he sees as a problem.

"Oftentimes, faculty feel like institutional penalties don't appropriately fit the malfeasance," he said. "Faculty want the autonomy because they feel the institutional penalties are too high. They also worry faculty will fear that the institution will turn on them."

Swinton said the most common complaint he hears, though, is that it is an arduous process.

"We can try to make the process that is in place as good as possible and refine it," he said.

The reality, though, he said, is that the organization is student run, which makes it more effective but sometimes less efficient.

A cultural issue

While the enforcement of the Honor Code is a difficult problem to tackle, Swinton and Heuser agreed culture is an important factor in why students cheat.

"I think that there is a culture that expects perfection," Swinton said. "Anytime you get around students that have been at school their entire lives, it is going to be difficult."

A student may have been at the top of their class most of their life, he said, and the first low grade can be a blow.

"All of the sudden someone gets a C and it alters their perception of self," he said. "One of the things we try to help students recognize is that they are not their grades."

Both Heuser and Swinton said the key to truly getting beyond the problems of academic integrity is teaching students that there is more to their education than transactional relationship embodied by simply receiving a grade.

"We live in a living-learning environment and we need to teach students to experience college as well as make the grades," he said.

It is a tough process, he admitted, especially as students aim to get into graduate schools and look for jobs.

"I try to approach cheating as a learning moment," Heuser said.