The February 15th editorial, High Honors
misrepresented the Russ College honor code and reveals common misunderstandings. Dean Irwin's response clarifies some details and outlines other initiatives, but the OU community would benefit from a clearer understanding of what honor codes do and why they are important.
Honor codes alone do not stop academic dishonesty and must be accompanied by other academic integrity initiatives. Though some research by Don McCabe ' a leading academic integrity expert ' in the early 1990s suggested honor codes might substantially reduce academic dishonesty, he and academic dishonesty researchers and honor code developers at universities across the US now argue that decreases in academic dishonesty are due to the conversations, debates and processes we go through while developing an honor code. The ongoing conversations result in a shared understanding of what academic integrity is and help develop a culture where academic integrity is expected and where academic dishonesty is unacceptable and consistently reaps negative consequences. Those same colleagues have emphasized that honor codes must be developed slowly by faculty and students, not administrators, with the input of as many constituents as possible. This is what the Russ College has done.
To develop the code, we held faculty and student workshops, faculty brown bag sessions, faculty and student town hall meetings, and countless Faculty and Student Academic Honor Council meetings to obtain ideas and feedback from as many people as possible. It was only as a result of these conversations that we were able to write an honor code, one that is different from those at other universities, in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and OU as a whole.
Will the honor code serve as a magic bullet that will stop all plagiarism and cheating? No. Nor does it change our university policies or consequences for academic misconduct. And in no way does it undermine the role of University Judiciaries in adjudicating such cases.
But the Russ College code does represent the shared values and articulates the high standards of academic integrity to which all members of the college are expected to adhere. It does serve as a reminder that it is necessary to live ' not just talk about ' the high standards of integrity that should underlie all of our education and research endeavors. It does serve as a springboard for future conversations about academic integrity and highlights the mutual responsibility of faculty and students. Signing the honor code represents a public commitment to upholding academic and professional integrity.
After just one year of conversations, public dialogues and individual discussions about academic integrity across campus following the media attention on plagiarism at OU, we've seen substantial decreases in the amount of self-reported academic dishonesty and changes in the way the OU community thinks about academic integrity. While we cannot be certain whether those findings were due to actual decreases in academic dishonesty or a change in attitude that made it less acceptable to admit to cheating, either scenario indicates that we are on the right path. Another study is currently underway to find out whether those trends have continued.
Perhaps if as much effort had been put into investigating and reporting the academic integrity initiatives in the Russ College and across OU as has been put into investigating and reporting allegations of plagiarism, progress might have been easier.'Melissa Broeckelman-Post is a graduate student in the School of Communication Studies and an academic honesty adviser for the Russ College of Engineering and Technology.
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Letter to the Editor
