Academic integrity is important at all college institutions. The issue is even more in the forefront because of how some parents paid for their children to unfairly be admitted to select four-year universities.
Collusion, an abuse of academic integrity, is one of the seven examples that Northwest Vista College provides as a violation. Some of the others are plagiarism, cheating or fabrication. Knowing what the violations are and being aware there’s a disciplinary procedure is a part of the capstone project that the 2018 Emerging Leaders program took on last year. Members of the group recently reported their findings to the NVC Cabinet.
Student Success’ Cynthia Grandt said many of the cohort members work in areas of the college that have daily contact with students and come across issues but weren’t sure what to do. The capstone looked at if both staff and faculty knew how to find academic integrity on the website, if they knew how to inform students of resources to help them, and if employees have sufficient training about it. To tackle these questions, the group surveyed 92 staff and 64 faculty members.
Based on the answers, the group recommended NVC:
- Revive the academic integrity committee,
- Provide professional development on academic integrity for employees,
- Build a web page with two portals for students and employees; and
- Provide a student-friendly summary of the policy.
The group also suggested that faculty should be given options for addressing violations, such as a teaching moment vs. a punishment, and consolidate the procedure to file a violation. Currently there are nine steps involved if you report a violation.