Campus -- Academic Integrity

Sarah Zaman, Urdu VOA News, Washington

Cheating and plagiarism are a major problem in Pakistan's academic system. However, academic institutions in America are also constantly making efforts to reduce incidents of academic dishonesty. Natalie Milman, a professor at George Washington Univsersity says there are cases of students, mostly at the school level, using cell phones to save answers or surf the web to get help on their exams. At college/ university level she says plagiarism is a bigger concern and every institution puts its academic integrity policy on the web and teachers inform students about it. Aisha Chowdry, a Pakistani American student at American University and a freelance journalist, says professors provide guidelines about using copyrighted material and students are constantly being warned about the implications of academic dishonesty. Yianna Vovides with GWU's Center for Innovative Learning showed us "Safe Assign", a computer application that teachers can run papers through if they suspect plagiarism. The software searches for similar information through various databases to determine originality. Vovides says if a school cannot pay for the software, teachers can always enter portions of an assignment into a search engine to see if something similar is available on the web. Students found guilty of academic dishonesty can be asked to re-do the assignment or in extreme cases be expelled after a committee comprising of students, faculty and staff has conducted hearings.

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