The need for academic integrity is intrinsic to those of us born before our phones became the lifeline that keeps us connected to the ‘real world’; back when you actually went to the library to research your topic, and the written word was a sacred source that must be cited.
Fast forward a decade or two...
For today’s generation however, the world’s knowledge is a veritable shmorgishborg, instantaneously available while we Google, Tweet, and Wiki our way through the day. Instant gratification is the expected norm and our social network considers everything a group project. That’s not to say that the core values we impart on our students -- honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility -- fall on deaf ears, I’m simply suggesting that it is no longer a passive assumption that the values of academic integrity will naturally be followed or even accepted.
The tables have seemingly turned towards non-compliance of standardized rules regarding information ownership. The growing need to set things straight again is glaringly apparent. The difficulty lies in determining how to get students to understand that giving credit where credit is due is expected and failure to cite a source demonstrates a lack of respect and responsibility. Gone is the respect for the original author(s) of the information pilfered; gone is the respect for the teacher who’s been duped into thinking they are reading an original, thoughtful prose based on what she’s taught in the classroom. More than that, however, they’ve squandered the opportunity to grow and develop as a student by cheating themselves out of knowledge that would have been garnered through thorough research and thoughtful pondering. The need for academic integrity becomes as essential as the need for rules and those who enforce them. A world without rules is chaos and an academic world without integrity is manipulative and self-serving.
An appreciation of academic integrity stems from knowing the rules, demonstrating the rules, understanding the consequences of not following those rules and vigilance in enforcing the rules. An educator can no longer assume that all students have the same respect for information and its sources as in days past. He has to start from where his student is at. Today’s students are faced with a myriad of information sources, all built on one another, intertwined and comingled to the point where the grey area is growing exponentially. There is no way to rein in the information, so we have to adjust our teaching methods to incorporate the ‘grey area’ and answer the questions that arise to the best of our ability. We must build and continue to foster a cognizance of self-respect in our students and influence them in such a way that the need for academic integrity, once again, becomes an intrinsic part of who they want to be. “Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.” ~J.C. Watts
