Honor code loophole may hurt students
A hole present in the student code for the last three years may allow professors to punish students without their knowledge.
Three years ago when the honor code and student code were combined, a portion of the academic violations section was left out leaving some confusion, Campus Judicial Officer Dallin Phillips said.
Previously, any disputable academic violation was taken before an honor board for a hearing. The board consisted of four appointed students and two faculty members.
However, with the loop hole in the code there have been instances when this has not occurred.
In one such case during a 2004 summer semester, a student did not find out his professor had suspected him of cheating until he received his end of the semester grades and saw he had been given a failing grade.
“It would be like sanctioning someone for drugs without proving it really happened,” Phillips said.
The code went through some procedural changes and put more responsibility on students to be honest. The honor code is now not clear as to what procedures should be followed when a student and professor disagree on whether or not the student cheated or plagiarized.
Phillips said he feels honor board hearings are the best and most objective places for sanctions to occur. And in many cases, professors are still following this procedure.
Members of the Associated Students of Utah State University Executive Council agree the code needs to be revamped and has a committee already working on the task.
“The problem we are addressing has to do with instructors penalizing a student’s grade without the innocence or guilt of the accusation being determined,” Al Lambert, student advocate, said.
The committee will also discuss a new draft of the code in its entirety to avoid other problems that could be caused by the previous combination of the two documents.
Nationally, cheating among students is on the rise, Phillips said, and USU has had more unusual and serious cheating cases. Last semester, a student published a piece of work that was not original and the violation resulted in the revoking of the student’s degree. Other times, it’s hard to tell if work has been plagiarized, he said.
Problems also arise because students are not aware of all plagiarism rules. For example, many students are unaware that using a paper written for a class in another class is, under USU code, considered plagiarism.
“In the past two semester we have opened eight academic misconduct cases, but I have discussed at least that many more with professors, department heads and deans,” Phillips said.
USU is trying to help professors combat the plagiarism problem. Beginning last fall, detecting and preventing plagiarism workshops have been available to professors, Rob Morrison reference librarian in charge of the workshops said. The workshops are voluntary and Morrison has found that cheating does occur at USU.
“We are hearing from faculty that they do encounter it from students and on a regular basis whether it be inadvertent or not,” Morrison said.
The workshops, which will no be available every fall and spring semester, help professors know how to better educate students on what exactly plagiarism is and how to detect plagiarism using a number of different resources. Morrison said that students should learn about writing and proper citation to avoid plagiarism. It also comes down to having integrity and being honest and not trying to “cut corners” in class.
“Would you want your doctor to have cut corners at school?” Morrison said.
-hilaryi@cc.usu.edu