Campus Initiatives
Overview of contents
Institutions that have successfully reduced plagiarism are those that develop, discuss, and advertise their plan to reduce plagiarism on campus. Campuses that have no plan at all, or those that keep their plan hidden tend to breed more plagiarism, which after many years is viewed as intractable. My hope is that Swarthmore College can move toward a more proactive response to plagiarism, and away from the "students will be students" approach that tolerates plagiarism as another trapping of modern life that cannot be avoided. The list of suggestions below is partly drawn from page 51 of the Swarthmore College Bulletin 2003-2004, but includes ideas I have colllected from others on campus:
1. Eliminate the CJC's "screening" phase
Before the CJC (College Judicial Committe) formally "hears" a case, the faculty meet to discuss whether a case should be heard. This screening phase prevents many cases from going forward, even when the student has admitted to plagiarizing. The effect of this screening has been that faculty on campus have largely given up on the CJC process. To remedy this situation, the full board should meet on all cases. And if the case is truly without merit, then the board will find "no merit," and everyone can be happy.
2. Educate new CJC members on CJC role
Not all faculty members have a firm grasp of what plagiarism is, and not all faculty believe that plagiarism is a form of dishonesty ("it's how some students learn to write," for example). Although in theory a committee could educate new members itself, empirically this process does not seem to work. A far better way would be for new members to receive a letter from the Provost that explained (1) the current rules (e.g., all cases of plagiarism, even "accidental" and "unintentional" plagiarism, are to be adjudicated) and (2) why sanctions should be from the CJC rather than from faculty acting on their own. If new CJC members are still unconvinced that the CJC's role and procedures are valid, they should be excused from duty so that the CJC effectiveness is not undermined. The CJC also might reasonably have an active document (e.g., on a "CJC Blackboard site) that can educate members on the typical sanctions for various infractions. Additionally, the following questions might be explicitly addressed: Is it OK to plagiarize a phrase of 2-5 words? Is it OK to plagiarize as long as 80% of words are replaced with synonyms? Is it OK to plagiarize when the material is too hard to rephrase? Is it OK to plagiarize as long as citations are provided? Is it OK to plagiarize as long as student claims it was unintentional? Is it OK to plagiarize if the student was allowed to do it in other courses? Is it OK if student is not a native English speaker?
3. Require all freshmen to take a writing course
Many other colleges (e.g., Middlebury, Haverford, Wellesley, Reed) have a writing-intensive course required of all freshmen (and all transfers) so that regardless of high school preparation and innate differences in writing ability, students know how to write before becoming sophomores. Until such a course is instituted at Swarthmore College, teachers of sophomores, juniors, and seniors cannot assume that their students have ever received instruction on proper citation, weaving their own logic with pre-existing ideas, logical flow, punctuation, spelling, etc. Or we could follow the model of many schools by making a writing course required for freshmen whose verbal SATs fall below a certain score (e.g., 650ish) rather than waiting until they fail to thrive. At the very least, incoming faculty should be made very aware of our rather large curricular hole, and made aware of how it directly influences the rate of plagiarism (i.e., if faculty member doesn't teach how to properly cite material, he/she is inviting plagiarism).
4. Reconstitute the Committee on Academic Dishonesty
This committee (CAD, appropriately) was disbanded in 2001. Most other institutions have permanent committees that are proactive in suggesting initiatives to the College (e.g., at Faculty Meetings), requesting (of ITS, Libraries, Deans Office, and Departments) the production of literature and web sites related to academic honesty, consulting with Division and Department Chairs regarding pedagogy and cheating, and advising CJC-type boards on procedural and policy matters.
5. Collect data on plagiarism at Swarthmore College
What proportion of Swarthmore students have plagiarized in high school? What percentage thought it was "wrong"? How many plagiarized their admissions essay? Is plagiarism incidence higher in certain departments? What percentage of faculty choose to ignore "lazy plagiarism"? Do faculty in different departments use CJC more than others, and is this difference related to the "field" or to "an influential department member"? Are most plagiarism cases from courses in which proper citation philosophy is not explicitly taught? These and other questions have been fully answered at other institutions (e.g., see PDFs from Duke, Penn State) via anonymous surveys. With similar data, we could design an "honesty plan" that would be useful for our profile of admitted students. Collecting these data each year (on incoming and graduating classes) would be a fabulous way to see how incoming classes are different and to assess how our "plan" is working.
6. Send annual plagiarism "reminder" to faculty
Remind faculty that the current policy is that all plagiarism cases must be sent to the CJC for adjudication. This includes even those that appear "unintentional" or are "minor" (just a few words). The reminder could include the text of the Student Bulletin section on Academic Honesty, and a summary of the CJC's activities/rulings from the previous year. It would be extra nice to also have a summary of the cases that were submitted to the CJC but that the CJC declined to hear. Sending this e-mail in the Fall, when new faculty are still preparing their syllabi, might be most effective. Ideally, this e-mail (or letter) should come from the Provost, but should be emphasized by Division and Department Chairs.
7. Send annual plagiarism "update" in May
To complement the "pre-Fall reminder" from the Provost, perhaps the CJC could send an all-faculty e-mail with a summary of cases from the year. This should be sent before faculty start ignoring their e-mail (May 22?), and might include suggestions for how to improve the situation for the coming year. A "thank you" to faculty using the CJC would be a nice touch, since those faculty have spent the time following the procedure, often to the scorn of fellow faculty who feel it is a waste of time.
8. Sponsor a presentation as part of the New Faculty Orientation series
Repeat every year.
9. Sponsor a yearly Faculty Lunch on plagiarism
Laboratory instructors, ITS staff, librarians and other non-faculty employees of the College have a large role to play in an institutional response to rising plagiarism. Therefore, productive discussions can only be made with these people present. The Faculty Lunch forum is therefore much more desirable than the more exclusive Faculty Meeting. Yearly repetition of this event would probably be unwelcome, but a 3 or 4-year cycle might be OK. Given that some faculty choose to view "plagiarism" as unworthy of their interest and time, dessert should be supplied to attract a broader audience.
10. Encourage faculty to include links to academic honesty policies
Notes: Only some departments have produced "departmental plagiarism" guidelines. When such documents do exist, the Chair might ask all faculty to please include a link to such verbiage within course web sites or Blackboard sites. Similarly, the College's primary webmaster/mistress might be asked to make access to policies and other verbiage more prominent. Division Chairs should also bring this topic up at Division meetings.
11. Ensure publication of CJC rulings in media that students actually read
Students respond to peer pressure, and thus it is critical that we have a way of saying, as an institution, "we do not tolerate plagiarism, even if it is unintentional." In the past, CJC rulings have been publicized in The Phoenix, but it has now refused to print them. If Public Safety uses e-mail to advertise safety issues, then the CJC should feel free to advertise sanctions and plagiarism warnings. Announcements on the "Student Portal" site (http://www.swarthmore.edu/Portal/) would also reach some students.
12. Redesign the CJC poster area in Parrish Hall
Perhaps we could post catchy (ha!) articles on plagiarism that students might actually read. Can we hire the students that are on the CJC to decorate this board? Include pictures of smiling CJC members? Graphs of plagiarism statistics (I'd be happy to construct), along with summaries of current CJC rulings. An editorial analyzing why plagiarism used to result in automatic expulsion?
13. Design a web site dedicated to reducing plagiarism on campus
Many campus have extensive web sites that aim to teach students about plagiarism (e.g., Georgetown's).
14. Design and distribute "Academic Honesty" flyers
Students and faculty rarely read the scintillating verbiage on academic honesty that is in the Faculty Handbook or the Student Bulletin; indeed, many don't even know the verbiage exists. Given that this is probably not going to change, we should produce something that students and faculty will read, or at least some of them will read. Other institutions have slick summaries of their Honor codes or equivalent. Having these policies on paper is substantially more effective than an online repository of verbiage and links (which demonstration, faculty, and students will ignore just as effectively as this web site). Stanford has a good example (see attached JPG); in particular, good use of color and images ensures higher readership.
15. Discuss academic honesty during freshman orientation events
It is good to remember that over 50% of entering students (data from national survey) will resort to plagiarism during college. Why wait to tell them it's dishonest and will not be tolerated?
16. Establish student-run initiatives
Many schools have Honor Codes that are formulated, voted in, and maintained by students. In these circumstances, it is an "Honor Code Board" of proactive students that maintains "honesty" web sites, "honesty" bulletin boards, etc. At Haverford's Board, students have also decided to "adopt" new faculty members to educate them on the "honesty" culture of Haverford. Student enthusiasm on this committee sends an extremely important message to other students and to the campus at large.
17. Send a faculty member to a conference on academic integrity
There are about a half-dozen of these each year, and Swarthmore could send somebody occasionally, to keep up with changing patterns of pedagogy in relation to dishonesty.
18. Don't kick faculty off of the CJC just because they think plagiarism is rampant.