STUDENT DEVELOPMENT OFFICE  
Counseling, Career and Employment Services    

> Student Rights & Responsibilities Home > 

Campus Life Policies  ·  Office of  Student Life

This page contains recommendations to faculty members from students on how they would like faculty to address academic integrity and academic dishonesty.

"As a student, I feel that there are nine very important things professors can do to try and deter cheaters. All ideas are taken from the book Academic Integrity and Student Development By: Kibler, Nuss, Paterson, and Pavela (1988).

1. Make an announcement the first day of class about the importance of ethics and moral responsibility to help avoid cheating.
2. Make sure that all tests are secured in a safe place.
3. Make all tests original.
4. When giving multiple choice tests, use a computer to scramble the questions.
5. If blue books are to be used, collect them the class session prior to the test and hand them out again for the test.
6. In very large impersonal classes, have each student hand in their tests personally and show their picture ID. Then check the class roster, the name on the test, and initial the test.
7. Number all test before distribution to make sure that all test are returned.

8. Warn students that some exams will be photocopied before they are returned. This is done to detect changes students may make.

9. When assigning a term paper, require that notes and a rough draft be turned in.

I think that if professors complied with these nine rules, cheating rates would drop significantly. Cheating is a major problem and something that can not continue to go unnoticed by faculty. Changes should be made so that students feel pressure to do the right thing." Danielle Brown-Garcia, B.A. Psychology, 1997

" While students are ultimately responsible for all of their behavior, some of the responsibility for academic integrity also falls on each faculty member.

Instructors are responsible for all course work and its structure; therefore, instructors are encouraged to change exams by making them original for each semester and not using repeats.

1. Instructors are encouraged to proctor all exams and to avoid giving take-home exams.
2. Instructors are encouraged to challenge the student with course work but not set them up to fail.
3. Instructors are encouraged to strengthen their classroom management skills because existing data shows that "under the right conditions, almost any student  might resort to dishonest behavior." (Kibler, Nuss, Paterson, and Pavela (1988). The instructor must control a classroom's atmosphere from the first day through the final day. Cheating is most likely to occur if the opportunity has been given to the cheater. Therefore, instructors are encouraged to do their part to deter, detect, and prosecute cheaters by decreasing all opportunities to cheat.
4. Instructors are encouraged to include a statement on the syllabus pertaining to academic dishonesty, how it is defined in their course, and what the University policy is regarding academic integrity, and to state the policies in the first class session." Felipe Martin, B.A. Psychology, 1997

Campus Life Policies   ·   Office of  Student Life

Student Rights & Responsibilities Home