Academic integrity remains a primary focus at Penn State

University Park, Pa. –- In the wake of recent unethical and criminal activities by business and government leaders, Penn State has enhanced its efforts to educate its students on the value of honesty and personal integrity.

"As a University, we have a further obligation to create an atmosphere of scholarly inquiry that fosters honest achievement and original work," Vicky Triponey, vice president for student affairs, told the Board of Trustees on Friday, May 13.

Triponey was part of a panel of experts updating the board on recent initiatives to enhance academic integrity at the University.

Five years ago, Penn State implemented a revised academic integrity policy aimed at re-engaging faculty into the process of adjudicating student misconduct allegations and better educating students about proper scholarly conduct. The policy, adopted by the University Faculty Senate, established committees in each of the University's academic colleges that have full responsibility for implementing academic integrity policies and educating students about those policies.

"We believe that communicating our values related to academic integrity to students is a critical part of a Penn State education," Jan Jacobs, vice provost for undergraduate education and international programs, told the board.

Under the new policy, the number of reported academic integrity violations has continued to increase. Joe Puzycki, interim assistant vice president and director of judicial affairs, calls the trend "expected and welcomed." Puzycki points to the increase as a sign that "we are paying more attention to violations of academic integrity."

The most common academic integrity violation during the last three-year period was plagiarism, which accounted for 59 percent of all reported cases. Cheating and copying accounted for about one-quarter of the total violations reported.

With a generation of students that has grown up with computers and the Internet, cyber-plagiarism is one of the newest forms of cheating on college campuses. John Harwood, senior director for teaching and learning with technology, told the board that the University launched a pilot effort this spring aimed at detecting and preventing cyber-plagiarism.

The pilot involved a program called Turnitin. The online program crosschecks papers against Web resources and databases to verify originality. If Turnitin finds a match, it flags the paper for faculty attention. Harwood said the pilot, which involved 50 faculty, will be made available to all faculty this fall.

An added benefit of Turnitin is that faculty can allow students to perform an "originality check" on their own papers before submitting those papers for grading. "I believe an even better use of the product will be plagiarism prevention," Harwood said. "The presence of Turnitin on our campuses should help both students and faculty feel confident that a student's paper is the student's own work."