Honor and Integrity System

Faculty Academic Integrity Survey Preliminary Report*

Qualitative Faculty Comments (Final Open-ended Question
(quoted as written with no editing)

    • A large percentage of students arrive at college with the attitude that finding shortcuts through the system is what's expected. Developing skills to beat the system is considered honorable, and learning the material is a waste of time. I have overheard students bragging about cheating and making fun of others for actually studying. If someone is caught cheating, the shame and disgrace are for having been caught, not for cheating.

    • All incidences of Honor Pledge violations should be reported through established procedures of the Honor System.

    • Cheating is not an issue in my course. Term papers are on specific topics that preclude use of 'paper mills'. Lab and lecture exams, I change the questions every semester.

    • Clarity

    • During orientation of students from other countries provide a clear definition of plagiarism and academic honesty.



  • Ensure that instructors are not allowed to use the Honor System as a way to discriminate against certain students!! Take exceptional measures to assure that culturally & linguistically diverse students are treated, not equally, but equitably, and fully understand why the code exists and what, exactly, constitute violations! Ensure that deans and Dept. Chairs control for faculty abuse of the system.

  • Faculty should be responsible for giving the same exame questions at different times which is far apart enough that students can communicate. It is immoral for professors to give the same exam as make up exam one day later.

  • Get more faculty involved and educated about this system.

  • Given that the Honor Code is a relatively recent innovation here, and given that the students, for the most part, need to be educated about both the facts (what is considered cheating?) and the penalties, it will simply take time before the current (good) policies are truly effective.

  • Greater awareness by faculty and students.

  • Have a student on all copy center syllabi (say, the inside cover page) that states that "Academic dishonesty (all forms of cheating) is unacceptable in this, and all, courses at KSU and is subject to penalties which may include course failure and/or expulsion."

  • I am, perhaps unfairly, dubious about student-determined and administered sanctions.

  • I faculty work as hard as they want their students to do, they will. If they want the easy and popular way, they will have that kind of student.

  • I have answered questions above concerning only my own classes. I am aware thru overhearing student conversations that the climate re. dishonesty is very different in other colleges/courses at the Univ. Questionnaire does not allow for typical plagiarism difficulties with international students (for whom a warning is often more appropriate 1st time than more severe penalties for plagiarism.) Damaging library materials isn't "cheating", it's criminal damage to property! Students themselves are reluctant to police their peers. I question its effectiveness b/c of that.

  • I have had very little experience with this issue.

  • I think both new and long-term faculty should be given more direct orientation to the KSU policies on a regular basis at the department level. Department heads need to be more proactive in informing faculty and discussing possible ways to prevent cheating.

  • If we had a mreo reasonable student:faculty ratio and smaller classes there would be far less opportunity for cheating. More personal interaction makes it harder and with smaller classes, exam administration adn grading reduces need for impersonal style exams such as mulitple choice-fill in blank. This is a problem of reality not policy however.

  • It is emotionally draining to confront students with violations, and I'd like the Honor System to have a greater presence on campus. I also like a similar honor system that apply to Graduate School. I've found more serious offenses at the Graduate level than at the undergraduate level.

  • Just make the policy clear, and do our best to make it fairly and evenly applied. We have lost a few students on a first offense because they were so ashamed to be accused of cheating when they were in fact unaware of the criteria that they left the university. We have to be especially careful with GTAs and instructors.

  • Keep working on maing the KSU Honor Code and system a part of the culture of the university. Do more to target incoming freshmen--maybe during summer welcome. Publish hearing results (names withheld) in the student paper. This could be done on a periodic basis, almost as a continuing feature in the paper. Change enough details to protect confidentiality, but enough of the story to help students realize how different scenarios constitute (or do not) cheating, I thnk this would be agreat way to generate discussion and awareness.

  • KSU has an excellent system in place and the program director is doing an excellent job to keep everyone informed.

  • Our Honor System is still young. I think that with time more seriousness will be given to the issues of academic honesty by both students and professors because our Honor Council does excellent work, the director of our Honor System is very proactive, and a good job is being done on making students and professors aware of the existence of the Honor Council and the value of Academic Honesty

  • Some modification are needed to our Honor System. Often faculty members cannot prove or verify that a student has cheated on an exam. Unfortunately, many of us do not report cheating unless we can offer some sort of proof because the Student Honor System will generally err on the side of the student.

  • The general policies involving the honor system and honor committee seem good. I think more faculty need to become aware of the results of reporting cheating cases to the honors committee. For instance, I think that most faculty do not know that they can report cheating cases (so that there is a central record) but still determine the penalty themselves (subject to the student's appeal). Also, I think they do not realize that the standard penalty that the honors committee metes out for a first major offense (and XF, I believe) is really quite lenient. I think some faculty worry that if they take the case to the honor system, they necessarily inflict a very severe punishment.

  • The KSU honor code is a one-wy policy that assumes students will cheat and tries to get them to tell on their peers. An honor code is a culture KSU is far from achieving it.

  • The KSU Honor System is doing a great service for the university. It's well-run, fair, and intelligently managed. I was skeptical at first; but the system works well.

  • Tie in integrity with grade inflation. Relate to work ethics.

  • To be honest, I have no idea what the procedures are. In the past, I have learned what my institution's procedures are when I have caught a plagiarist: At that time, I find out how to prosecute the student and then do so.

  • Until I had a cheating incident, I didn't know the process. I talked to appropriate people in my college and they shared the university policy with me. Having a brief policy description for new faculty would be very helpful, but not the first week when so much is handed out - perhaps halfway into the first year.

  • We need smaller classes so that professors can assign projects and papers and other performance tasks. With large classes they can only give multiple choice exams because they don't have the time to grade papers. With smaller classses, the students are known to the instructor and may be less likely to cheat. If teaching was more student-centered, then students would be more eager to learn and less likely to cheat. We should do more collaborative learning in which cheating is an irrelevant concept.

  • We need to improve our "lecture culture," encouraging students to attend lectures through their entirety, including the question and answer session at the end.

  • Widely publicize in the student newspaper the consequences of this type of behavior, and consequences.

*Donald L. McCabe. 2003 Spring Semester Academic Integrity Survey Study conducted at Kansas State University.