Report Examines Cheating Types, Trends on OU Campus
Edition: CITY, Section: MY NORMAN / MY METRO VI, Page 1D
NORMAN — Plagiarism is the most frequent instance of academic misconduct that comes before the University of Oklahoma Student Association's Honor Council, yet some of the accused didn't realize what constitutes copying the work of others.
Assistant Provost Greg Heiser and Honor Council members Hakeem Shakir and Eric Hansen discussed types and trends in cheating on campus Monday to the OU Faculty Senate. The Honor Council works with the provost's office to maintain academic integrity, and students on the council sit on student disciplinary panels in cases of academic misconduct.
Heiser shared a preliminary report that summarizes academic misconduct cases over a 10-year period, from the 1995-96 school year through 2005-06. Plagiarism accounted for more than 41 percent of 1,964 cases in that time frame, topping out-of-class collaboration (28.1 percent), in-class cheating (17.4 percent) and miscellaneous types (13.1 percent).
Of the four undergraduate classes, graduate students and other designations, seniors and sophomores made up nearly half of misconduct cases — 26.6 percent for seniors and 20.1 percent for sophomores.
The College of Arts and Sciences, because of its sheer size — 10,455 students in 2005-06 — had the most cases with 644 in those 10 years. But when it came to percentages, University College (369 cases over the years in a college with 2,758 students) and engineering (249 cases in the 10 years, 2,682 total students last year) had the highest.
Last school year, 43 students received an F because of cheating, and 40 students were suspended at least one semester for the misconduct.
Hansen said some students boast about cheating and getting away with it, whereas others try to hide what they do. Still others, he said, didn't realize what they were doing.
Hansen said some students unintentionally plagiarize by paraphrasing a book, article or report without citing the reference.
"Some think if it's their own words, it's their own work," he said.
Hansen and Shakir said that misperception explains the council's mission to educate students on what academic misconduct is "and not just say, 'Don't cheat.' " The council has resources at learning centers throughout campus and at its Web site of www.ou.edu/honorcouncil.
Council members also hope to change students' perception of cheating in general with slogans like, "Would you date a cheater?" and "Do you want a doctor operating on you who cheated his way through school?"
"Part of it," Hansen said earlier, "is the educational process whereas others are looking for shortcuts. We (on the council) are looking to help with education, and I think professors can be more helpful with catching people who want to cheat."
In another agenda matter, the Faculty Senate voted to postpone consideration of an evolution statement until the Jan. 22 meeting in order to allow the executive committee to broaden its language to include all science and not just evolution.
The OU Zoology Department wants to pass a statement in response to Oklahoma public schools' practice of shying away from evolution and allowing intelligent design to be taught.
Reprinted with permission.
