Academic Honesty

In the webinar we touched on some of the following points that I would like to share:

Academic honesty is routed in the learner profile, in particular within attribute of “Principled”.

“They (students) act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness, justice and respect for the dignity of the individual, groups and communities. They take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences that accompany them.” (IBO learner profile booklet, 2009) .

Academic Honesty, is at its heart, a set of values and skills that help promotes integrity and good practice in teaching, learning and assessment and to ensure students do not gain an unfair advantage. It is not focussed on ‘finding students out’.

No statistics are published by the IBO, though approximately 1000 candidates are investigated each year [approx. 53% for plagarism, 23% for collusion and 12% for breaking other regulations. It is rare for disclosure of exam content to be spread across timezones ]

Ultimately the major issue by far was not of students cheating; rather that they were not sufficiently informed of the need to cite sources, or that simply quoting but not citing the source, was a breach even if the text was found in a source in the bibliography.

The IBO does not require any one style of referencing, just that whatever is used, is used consistently.

I asked of the responsibilities of the teacher and whether there are penalties if a student is found to have breached Academic Honesty. I was told that the school is investigated and not the teacher. That it is the role of the school to ensure an authentic piece of work.

A schools Academic Honesty policy should illustrate:

• How academic honesty is promoted
• It should live in the classroom
• It state clear penalties for breaches in Academic Honesty

Take a moment to visit the following site that discusses academic honesty http://www.read2live.com/

For further material on this topic follow the click here.

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