ࡱ> XZWa Jbjbjjj 3\?b?bAZZ8"$F$Jjq  }$HqqAAA}A}AAAf24'Ai0A4AA(AXZB : Academic Integrity at Queens University: A Brief Overview of Recent Initiatives and Future Directions for Principal Tom Williams by James K.W. Lee, P.Eng. Academic Integrity Advisor to the Vice-Principal (Academic), Professor of Geology and Geological Engineering, and Acting Associate Dean (Faculty of Arts & Science) 2008 07 17 Background On 26 Jan 2006, Senate adopted an Academic Integrity Statement, which reads as follows: Academic integrity is constituted by the five core fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility (as articulated by the Centre for Academic Integrity, Clemson University; see www.academicintegrity.org) all of which are central to the building, nurturing and sustaining of an academic community in which all members of the community will thrive. Adherence to the values expressed through academic integrity forms a foundation for the "freedom of inquiry and exchange of ideas" essential to the intellectual life of the University (see http://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/senate/policies/princpri/). ֱ students, faculty, administrators and staff therefore all have ethical responsibilities for supporting and upholding the fundamental values of academic integrity. This statement arose out of one of the recommendations in the final report of the Senate Committee on Academic Development subcommittee on Academic Integrity, which was also accepted by Senate on 26 Jan 2006 and may be found at http://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/senate/policies/AcadInteg.html. The role of the Academic Integrity Advisor to the Vice-Principal (Academic) was created in July 2007 to further pursue and direct other academic-integrity-related recommendations presented in the SCAD subcommittee final report, which outlined recommendations in three broad areas of academic integrity (AI) awareness, education, and policies and procedures. In conjunction with an AI assistant (Mr. Charles Sumbler), a broad plan has been launched with the goal of promoting and fostering a culture of AI on campus, through various initiatives in these three broad areas. This document summarizes the various initiatives that have been undertaken to date and subsequently outlines our future directions over the next year. Initiatives Several initiatives have been undertaken over the last year. A brief summary of each is outlined below. Academic-Integrity Website a new Queens academic-integrity website has been developed as part of the AI initiative ( HYPERLINK "http://www.queensu.ca/academicintegrity/" http://www.queensu.ca/academicintegrity/). Previously, no university-wide website existed, and students and faculty members had to navigate individual Faculty websites for more information. The new website centralizes the existing AI policies for the university as well as all Faculties and Schools, presents a general discussion of AI in the university context, provides links to a variety of existing tools and resources for both students and instructors, and even offers a venue for students to post their thoughts on AI at Queens. This has been a key initiative, as most other Ontario universities have specific AI websites and this will directly address the implementation of an OCAVP/COU proposal for the creation of a provincial AI webpage with links to the AI web pages for each Ontario university. Academic Integrity Working Group at Queens an AI Working Group has been created on campus, consisting of primarily academic administrators from all Faculties, Schools, related unit (such as the Centre for Teaching and Learning), and a representative from the AMS. This represents, for the very first time, the formation of a group of mid-level administrators who have direct responsibility for the development of academic policies and procedures within their areas of jurisdiction. Presentations were made to the group covering topics such as AI policies at Queens, reports from AI conferences, discussion of a university-wide AI survey, and other AI initiatives in faculties and schools. It has proven to be a valuable sounding board for any AI initiatives, in order to see if there would be widespread campus support. Use of Turnitin Queens has been contacted by the vendor of the well-known text-matching software, Turnitin. At present, some departments on campus use it on a course-by-course basis, although there is no university-wide policy on its use. After considerable investigation, especially with other institutions, and extensive consultation with the AI Working Group, who provided positive feedback on its use, Turnitin representatives were invited to visit Queens in early 2008, and a demo period is currently underway. We are currently considering the acquisition of a university-wide site license for a pilot project as part of an implementation plan which we have developed. University Guidelines for AI Procedures several meetings have been held with the Chair of the Senate Committee on Academic Procedures (SCAP) and its members to develop a Senate guideline on procedures for dealing with AI cases involving students. Because of the decentralized nature of Queens, current faculty policies and procedures are diverse and, indeed, inconsistent at various levels. Although the development of standardized university-wide procedures for all faculties may be a challenge, we have encouraged SCAP, with our input and guidance, to develop a set of guidelines that would contain the essential elements of best-practice AI procedures, using the recently developed and updated AI procedures from the Faculty of Arts & Science as a model. Obtaining Faculty and School buy-in has been a significant accomplishment and this has been one of our most significant initiatives in the last year. The draft guidelines were distributed to Senate in May 2008 and will be voted on at the September 2008 meeting. Ontario Academic Integrity Listserv and Meeting after discussions with numerous colleagues dealing with AI issues at other Ontario universities, we decided that it would be extremely beneficial to establish an Ontario-wide listserv for AI administrators. The purpose of this listserv is to: (a) provide a specialized venue for the discussion of AI issues, and (b) facilitate these discussions beyond the local university environment. Although such a network does not exist in other provinces (yet), there is a clear need for interuniversity discussion of AI in the broader context, both to share knowledge and to explore ways of improving procedures and policies under a unified agenda. With assistance from ITS, this listserv, hosted at Queens, is now fully functional and has members from Ryerson, Toronto, York, Brock, Wilfrid Laurier, McMaster, Windsor, and Queens. This effort has also facilitated the formation of an informal province-wide group of AI administrators. As a result of an increasing desire among AI administrators at various Ontario universities for a more direct contact and discussion, it was decided (largely through the Queens established AI Listserv) that regular bi-annual meetings be held to discuss common issues and trends. The inaugural meeting was hosted by Ryerson on June 6, 2008, and discussion centred around issues surrounding the use of Facebook, the presence of essay writing services promotional material on campus, transcript notations for academic misconduct, research-integrity policies in Ontario universities, and the COU discussion paper on AI Policies and Procedures across Ontario. Queens will be hosting the meeting in June 2009. University Visits a number of day-long visits to universities in Ontario, Quebec, and Australia (in association with a conference) were undertaken to determine best practices in the promotion and practices of AI in higher education. Site visits have been made to Ryerson University, University of Toronto, York University, McGill University, University of Melbourne, and the Australian National University (ANU). Further details are available in more detailed site-visit reports. Academic-Integrity Meetings and Conferences we have attended several useful and informative meetings and conferences, highlighting different aspects of academic integrity in different contexts and regional settings. 1St World Conference on Research Integrity sponsored by the European Science Foundation and the U.S. Office of Research Integrity, this landmark conference brought together researchers, administrators, journal editors, policy-makers, and government representatives from all over the world for the first time to discuss a variety of issues involved in research integrity. The conference sessions focused around three main themes: research misconduct policies and practices, institutional and societal issues involving research integrity, and publishers and the role of editors and scholarly journals in research integrity. As a result of the diverse nature of the topics, however, consensus was difficult to achieve on many specific issues, including a definition of research integrity (RI), the level of responsibility at which RI investigations should take place, and whether a values-based vs. compliance-based approach should be adopted. The role of journals and publications was also discussed and editors from high-impact journals (e.g. Nature and Science) also presented talks. A detailed report was submitted to the Vice-Principal (Academic) as well as the Vice-Principal (Research) and the Associate Vice-Principal (Research). Center for Academic Integrity (CAI) Annual Conference this is the most highly-regarded international conference on academic integrity, which covers many diverse issues ranging from procedures, to policies, to education, and even advocacy. Three main themes from this years conference included the merits of implementing a facilitated discussion program, students in the role of AI activists, and the ability to remediate students through educational workshops and seminars. The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss AI issues with others from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, and institutions and to compare and contrast policies, procedures, and programs at a variety of institutions to identify best practices. A detailed report was submitted to the Vice-Principal (Academic). Asia-Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity this conference, somewhat analogous conference to the CAI conference in North America, focused on major themes including academic-integrity policies, the integrity of research, educating students about integrity and ethics, and the educating of transnational and international students. 3rd International Plagiarism Conference with plagiarism being one of the most common issues in academic integrity, this conference highlighted the ethical use of digital sources, approaches to engaging both learners and educators in the process of addressing plagiarism, and addressing plagiarism in web 2.0 and emerging technologies. Future Directions To date, perhaps the most significant challenge in introducing and promoting any AI initiatives at Queens has been the decentralized organizational and jurisdictional structure of the university. The ubiquitous autonomy of Faculties and Schools greatly increases flexibility and allows for the accommodation of various factors unique to each unit, but makes the university-wide adoption of new policies and practices very difficult and often impossible. Every other institution we have visited has a centralized AI policy, which has had clear advantages when introducing related initiatives. To this end, assuming that the SCAP Guidelines on Academic Integrity Procedures are passed by Senate, we will be encouraging and working with Faculties/Schools to implement the requirements outlined in the Senate document. Our plan is to serve as a resource to promote consistency and fairness in AI procedures across the university. Over the next year, three potential major initiatives will be the core focus of our efforts. A brief description of each is given below, in addition to the perceived challenges which will need to be overcome to implement these successfully. Use of Turnitin after the demo phase (which is currently underway), our next phase of the implementation will be to launch a 1-year university-wide pilot of the product. However, this will require the development of university-wide guidelines for its use and continued consultation with students. A successful presentation on this topic was made to AMS Assembly at the conclusion of the previous academic year and helped to facilitate the AMS decision to remove a policy that opposed the use of Turnitin. Despite general Faculty and School support for its use, we have been in discussions with the new AMS Academic Affairs Commissioner over the use of Turnitin, who remains somewhat skeptical of its value, despite the benefits for students, faculty members, and the institution. We plan to have further discussions on this issue. In addition, further progress on implementation will depend on the financial resources allocated to this project in the upcoming 2008-09 university budget. A budget proposal of ~$36000 for the 1-year pilot project was submitted in March 2008 but was recently turned down by the Principals Advisory Committee on Budget (PACB), so this initiative may have to be placed on hold. AI Tutorial I have recently proposed to the Faculties and Schools the idea of implementing a university-wide, mandatory online tutorial in academic integrity for all students - both undergraduate and graduate. Modelled after a similar initiative at one of our major institutional partners (the University of Western Australia), such a tutorial offers numerous benefits, including raising the profile of AI across the campus, ensuring incoming students are educated in the universitys academic expectations and AI policies, sending a clear message to students and faculty members that Queens takes AI seriously, and requiring minimal resources to implement and administer. Furthermore, Queens has the opportunity to be a leader in such initiatives in Canada, as no other higher-education institution has a mandatory AI program. After consultation with the AI Working Group at Queens, there has been a generally positive response to the concept, but much less agreement on the implementation of the mandatory aspect of the program. Interestingly, the AMS representative has expressed concern as to exactly what notation regarding the tutorial may appear on student transcripts, and the response of the Faculty of Education representative to the mandatory nature of the tutorial has been extremely negative. Finally, some Faculties (i.e. Law and possibly Applied Science) suggest that such a tutorial may be better incorporated into existing courses rather than launched as a standalone course. Further discussions are ongoing to see if a consensus can be reached. Academic Integrity in Research at Queens the Office of the Vice-Principal (Research) is currently developing a new, updated policy for research integrity at Queens. In part, this has come about in response to the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Integrity in Research and Scholarship, requiring all universities receiving federal grants to have a clear policy and procedures, but also because of recent misconduct cases involving researchers at Queens and in other universities in Canada. Some discussions with Susan Marlin (Associate-Viee-Principal, Research) have been held over the course of policy development. One major challenge has been to agree upon a common definition of academic integrity as we have differing philosophies on this matter. In the classical, more traditional university view, research integrity and academic integrity are two distinct entities requiring two separate polices, whereby research integrity involves faculty members and staff and students undertaking research activities, whereas academic integrity applies to undergraduates and graduate students undertaking course work. In the university context, I believe that we should take a much broader approach. If we accept that the university's academic mission encompasses research, service, and teaching, then research integrity is clearly encompassed within this broad definition of academic integrity. This notion of academic integrity thus provides an overarching framework and philosophy from which more detailed AI policies on research and teaching can be derived. It is noteworthy that the Senate Academic Integrity Statement (stated above) is completely consistent with this broader definition of academic integrity and acknowledges the university's commitment to upholding integrity in all scholarly work, including both teaching and research activities.     p.  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