Academic Integrity Case Study - Case #2
In recent years, the number of international students studying in the United States has grown considerably, and the number of academic misconduct incidents involving international students has increased accordingly (Redden, 2007). However, due to cultural differences, these students are most often unaware of their academic dishonesty behavior (Thomas, 2004). What is academic integrity? Many international students may not be aware of the definition of academic integrity. According to the mason honor code, academic integrity means not “cheat, steal, plagiarize, or lie in matters related to your academic work.” To be specific, “cheating encompasses the unauthorized use of, access to, or provision of academic work in an attempt to misrepresent a student’s actual efforts. Plagiarism is defined as using another individual’s ideas or words without attribution or credit. Stealing from an academic perspective deals with obtaining and/or providing unauthorized access to educational materials. Lying in an academic context refers to providing information known to be false as a way to bypass classroom expectations or gain an unfair advantage in completing academic work.” The purpose of this article is through analyze an academic integrity case study to discuss how international students will abide by the honor code as graduate students at Mason and to provide recommendations to help international students deeper understand and apply academic integrity in a variety of situation.
To begin with, this case needs to be summarized so that it could be greatly analyzed. Monica is an international student in INTO George Mason, who is in her first semester of the electrical engineering graduate pathways program. She is currently enrolled in a major course in engineering and four English courses, there are PROV 501, EAP 505, EAP 506, and EAP 099 respectively. She sometimes feels tired and fears waking up early for her morning EAP 505 course. This is related to the fact that she often chats with her friends in her home country late at night. One of her EAP 505 assignment is a presentation on receiving feedback from your professors, which is familiar with a presentation in her PROV 501 course. She references the PROV 501 course page in Blackboard and downloads the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. She changes the cover slide to include her name and the conclusion slide to provide her own feedback. She performs the presentation well and then she receives an A-. However, the professor knows the situation from another student in the course. As Monica violated standards of academic integrity, the professor refers her to the Office of Academic Integrity. In addition, I will make a concrete analysis of each specific aspect that Monica alleged violations of academic integrity in this case. Firstly, Monica referred to violating the Honor Code of cheating. A case in point is Monica references the PROV 501 course page in Blackboard and downloads the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. According to the mason honor code, “cheating encompasses the unauthorized use of or provision of academic work in an attempt to misrepresent a student’s actual efforts in their scholarship.” It includes use of unauthorized material and unauthorized assistance, duplicate use of a student’s prior work, submission of another individual’s work, providing or benefiting from unauthorized academic material and violation of course requirements regarding integrity. Indeed, Monica used the unauthorized slides from the PROV 501 course on feedback by the professor as well as duplicate used the resources by the reading leaders. And then she receives an A- from the unauthorized academic material. These academic misconduct violated the course requirements regarding integrity. Moreover, Monica referred to violating the Honor Code of lying. According to the mason honor code, “lying in an academic context refers to providing information known to be false as a way to bypass classroom expectations or to gain an unfair advantage in completing academic work.” It includes falsifying sources, data, or information, providing a false excuse for missing a test or class, providing false information, including identifying information and falsifying official correspondence. In fact, Monica changed the cover slides to include her name and replaced the conclusion slide to provide an example of her own feedback that she received on an assignment in her major course.
Nevertheless, some alternative solutions can be provided that Monica act differently to complete the assignment while satisfying the standards of academic integrity. Initially, Monica should check the syllabus of EAP 505 or ask the professor whether she can use slides and resources from the PROV 501 in the assignment. If the answer is yes, she also needs to ask the professor of PROV 501 for permission as well as get agreement from the reading leaders. Besides, using citation when she uses the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. Finally, she ought to use her own examples of feedback. Many GMU campus resources are available to help students in this situation, such as the writing center and LRC programs. The writing center teach students how to gather, evaluate, and use the work of others, and how to give proper credit when students use others’ work. LRC programs include graduate teaching assistant oral assessment, pronunciation lab, supervised writing sessions, grammar troublespots and so on.
According to the mason honor code, “all suspected violations must be reported to the Office of Academic Integrity and then the students are notified in writing via their Mason email and need to schedule a pre-hearing meeting with a staff member in the Office of Academic Integrity within seven days of the date of the letter to review the case materials and decide on the next course of action. In general, students have 3 resolution options: a prehearing resolution, a full case review, or a sanctions only case review.” Considering the purpose of the academic integrity standards and possible sanctions, I think the outcome of this case should be zero for the assignment and reduce grade for the course. The student was asked to attend the academic integrity seminar and avoiding plagiarism online seminar as well as visit writing center.
Academic misconduct incidents involving international students who are enrolled in American institutions of higher education has increased dramatically in recent years. The focus of this article has been on providing specific recommendations to international students abide by the honor code as graduate students at Mason. By analyze an academic integrity case study in this article, international students can enhance their knowledge of academic integrity and apply academic integrity in a variety of situation.
References:
Redden, E. (2007). Cheating Across Cultures. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/24/cheating.
Gillespie, G. (2012). Guide to Advising International Students about Academic Integrity. Penn State. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2012/03/guide-to-advising-international-students-about-academic-integrity/.
Mason Honor Code. George Mason University. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://oai.gmu.edu/mason-honor-code/full-honor-code-document/.
In recent years, the number of international students studying in the United States has grown considerably, and the number of academic misconduct incidents involving international students has increased accordingly (Redden, 2007). However, due to cultural differences, these students are most often unaware of their academic dishonesty behavior (Thomas, 2004). What is academic integrity? Many international students may not be aware of the definition of academic integrity. According to the mason honor code, academic integrity means not “cheat, steal, plagiarize, or lie in matters related to your academic work.” To be specific, “cheating encompasses the unauthorized use of, access to, or provision of academic work in an attempt to misrepresent a student’s actual efforts. Plagiarism is defined as using another individual’s ideas or words without attribution or credit. Stealing from an academic perspective deals with obtaining and/or providing unauthorized access to educational materials. Lying in an academic context refers to providing information known to be false as a way to bypass classroom expectations or gain an unfair advantage in completing academic work.” The purpose of this article is through analyze an academic integrity case study to discuss how international students will abide by the honor code as graduate students at Mason and to provide recommendations to help international students deeper understand and apply academic integrity in a variety of situation.
To begin with, this case needs to be summarized so that it could be greatly analyzed. Monica is an international student in INTO George Mason, who is in her first semester of the electrical engineering graduate pathways program. She is currently enrolled in a major course in engineering and four English courses, there are PROV 501, EAP 505, EAP 506, and EAP 099 respectively. She sometimes feels tired and fears waking up early for her morning EAP 505 course. This is related to the fact that she often chats with her friends in her home country late at night. One of her EAP 505 assignment is a presentation on receiving feedback from your professors, which is familiar with a presentation in her PROV 501 course. She references the PROV 501 course page in Blackboard and downloads the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. She changes the cover slide to include her name and the conclusion slide to provide her own feedback. She performs the presentation well and then she receives an A-. However, the professor knows the situation from another student in the course. As Monica violated standards of academic integrity, the professor refers her to the Office of Academic Integrity. In addition, I will make a concrete analysis of each specific aspect that Monica alleged violations of academic integrity in this case. Firstly, Monica referred to violating the Honor Code of cheating. A case in point is Monica references the PROV 501 course page in Blackboard and downloads the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. According to the mason honor code, “cheating encompasses the unauthorized use of or provision of academic work in an attempt to misrepresent a student’s actual efforts in their scholarship.” It includes use of unauthorized material and unauthorized assistance, duplicate use of a student’s prior work, submission of another individual’s work, providing or benefiting from unauthorized academic material and violation of course requirements regarding integrity. Indeed, Monica used the unauthorized slides from the PROV 501 course on feedback by the professor as well as duplicate used the resources by the reading leaders. And then she receives an A- from the unauthorized academic material. These academic misconduct violated the course requirements regarding integrity. Moreover, Monica referred to violating the Honor Code of lying. According to the mason honor code, “lying in an academic context refers to providing information known to be false as a way to bypass classroom expectations or to gain an unfair advantage in completing academic work.” It includes falsifying sources, data, or information, providing a false excuse for missing a test or class, providing false information, including identifying information and falsifying official correspondence. In fact, Monica changed the cover slides to include her name and replaced the conclusion slide to provide an example of her own feedback that she received on an assignment in her major course.
Nevertheless, some alternative solutions can be provided that Monica act differently to complete the assignment while satisfying the standards of academic integrity. Initially, Monica should check the syllabus of EAP 505 or ask the professor whether she can use slides and resources from the PROV 501 in the assignment. If the answer is yes, she also needs to ask the professor of PROV 501 for permission as well as get agreement from the reading leaders. Besides, using citation when she uses the professor’s slides and the reading leaders’ resources. Finally, she ought to use her own examples of feedback. Many GMU campus resources are available to help students in this situation, such as the writing center and LRC programs. The writing center teach students how to gather, evaluate, and use the work of others, and how to give proper credit when students use others’ work. LRC programs include graduate teaching assistant oral assessment, pronunciation lab, supervised writing sessions, grammar troublespots and so on.
According to the mason honor code, “all suspected violations must be reported to the Office of Academic Integrity and then the students are notified in writing via their Mason email and need to schedule a pre-hearing meeting with a staff member in the Office of Academic Integrity within seven days of the date of the letter to review the case materials and decide on the next course of action. In general, students have 3 resolution options: a prehearing resolution, a full case review, or a sanctions only case review.” Considering the purpose of the academic integrity standards and possible sanctions, I think the outcome of this case should be zero for the assignment and reduce grade for the course. The student was asked to attend the academic integrity seminar and avoiding plagiarism online seminar as well as visit writing center.
Academic misconduct incidents involving international students who are enrolled in American institutions of higher education has increased dramatically in recent years. The focus of this article has been on providing specific recommendations to international students abide by the honor code as graduate students at Mason. By analyze an academic integrity case study in this article, international students can enhance their knowledge of academic integrity and apply academic integrity in a variety of situation.
References:
Redden, E. (2007). Cheating Across Cultures. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/24/cheating.
Gillespie, G. (2012). Guide to Advising International Students about Academic Integrity. Penn State. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2012/03/guide-to-advising-international-students-about-academic-integrity/.
Mason Honor Code. George Mason University. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from https://oai.gmu.edu/mason-honor-code/full-honor-code-document/.
This is my assignment from PROV course – PROV 504 Accelerated Introduction to Graduate Study. This is a mid-term case study project on academic integrity. A case study is provided by my professor. The case describes a situation in which it is suspected the honor code has been violated and is being reported to the Mason honor committee. Students are required to analyze the case and respond with an 800-word paper. For this project, I applied the knowledge which I gain about academic integrity to the situation described in the case study. Through this project I learned the definition of academic integrity. According to the mason honor code, academic integrity means not “cheat, steal, plagiarize, or lie in matters related to your academic work.” The purpose of my paper is through analyze an academic integrity case study to discuss how international students will abide by the honor code as a graduate student at Mason and to give recommendations to help international students deeper understand and apply academic integrity in a variety of situation.