 You know way back in the Stone Ages when I was in college We didn't have the internet in the way that you do today. It was a you know prehistoric times We did not have access to the internet Really in in the way that you think of it today if we wanted to know something We had to actually go to the library and look it up in books or find it in magazines newspapers whatever made to find a hard copy of something and so Bring this up because as a way of studying and learning Involved a lot more memorization. It wasn't just information at your fingertips We had to memorize things or know where to find things and so the you know the learning experience was just Significantly different for me now in this generation in the time that you're attending college We have the internet you know In a much deeper way than we did back in my day and so that has really changed the learning experience for many many people You're no longer expected to just memorize things as much and that's not really a thing because you can just look it up On your phone that you have right there with you So learning has become a very different experience, but one way that that has impacted Higher education is in the area of academic honesty. It's you know, it's harder to Check people and keep people in check with academic honesty when you have all this information right at your fingertips It's also become an issue with things like plagiarism and and even unintentional plagiarism So the the evolution of the the internet and the impact that's had on learning experiences has had a Significant impact on academic honesty. So let's spend a few minutes talking about what we mean by academic honesty What's important about academic honesty and and why we should be concerned with it? So basically we're going to talk about really five principles of academic honesty today Academic honesty academic integrity and those are honesty trust fairness respect and responsibility Those are the categories we're going to talk about now is that comprehensive probably not but but it's the covers the major Aspects of what we need to get at so let's start with honesty When we talk about honesty, we're of course talking about things like lying falsification of documents theft of intellectual property all of those things have to do with honesty either by by honesty by Misleading someone and actually giving false information or even by omission you know Honesty dishonesty by omission is still dishonesty. You know if we say well, I didn't lie didn't you know lying involves providing false information And I didn't do that. So that's not really that bad as it can be if you if you're still Holding out on information and not providing some that's what we call deception by omission And it's really the same thing and in academics that takes the the form of you know, both Both lying and omission and all kinds of dishonesty Take on a different a variety of different forms. So when we talk about yeah lying is certainly not being honest We need to avoid that but we also need to involve avoid falsifying documents. For example, I mean getting Photoshop It's it's not difficult to to Photoshop something or you know change the look of something falsify those documents where you got it That's that's at your fingertips as well in today's learning experience in today's world That's a little intellectual property. We may just think well, it's on the internet. So it's free and it's in I don't have to do anything with now. That's somebody else's property. Even if it says, you know This is under the Creative Commons license, for example That's a very common thing for open educational resources and higher education to be under what's called the Creative Commons license Which is intended for people to use and and distribute freely and and things like that But it also most of the time will involve attribution saying this is where I got it This is I didn't come over this idea myself. So even at those levels, we need to be aware of the theft of intellectual property and dishonesty in general Being dishonest is so much easier with the internet and on the internet So it needs to be at the top of our mind both as you know, just as academics as people who are pursuing academics can nobody benefits when you're when you're dishonest You're not benefiting really in the long run and neither is anybody else So so there's that just in both foundational level as an academic But then when you fold in the fact that you know as Christians, of course, we were called to not be honest We're not to lie. We're not to falsify documents. We're not to do any of those things So it becomes even more inherent for us as Christians to adhere to honesty as a part of academic honesty and academic integrity Academic integrity and honesty also involves a degree of trust Trust between you and the institution you and your classmates you and your your instructors and involves a trust in a variety of ways such as First of all presentation without deception When you when you're presenting information again go back to honesty and lying and things We're presenting information. We're sharing information whether that's spoken whether it's written However, we're communicating something we need to do so without deception as simple as that we need to leave, you know deception at the door and and present information honestly and In with full candor when we're using statistics, don't fudge them Don't you know hide them bury them somewhere deep if it's a it's if it's unfavorable We need to just present things and let them take it where it will where it may plagiarism obviously an issue that that is It should be no surprise to anybody when you when you I was still my students when you Share something when you use information or a quote or anything or or anything. That's not from your own brain You need to tell us where it came from. Otherwise, it's plagiarism And even if it's your own item, you can still plagiarize yourself, right? If you're aware of that you write a paper for your history class for example And you are in your communication class or your English class or something and you you think well This is the same paper really work for this assignment. I can just reuse this paper That's self plagiarism. You created that paper that work for another purpose and submitted it and used it for that purpose So if you're going to use it for this one first of all, I tell students especially in like a speech class or something It's okay to use the same body of research If you already did the research for this history paper You can repurpose that research to write a new paper for your English class or to prepare a new speech a new creation of a speech for your speech class But to just wholesale bring that over and use that submit that for a different purpose Once it's already been used is self plagiarism. So that's just something to be aware of But certainly that and obviously plagiarizing other people that breaks the trust between you and and everyone else You the institution your instructor your classmates So plagiarism is a really significant issue and then receipt of unacknowledged assistance If you got help with something you need to tell that I mean you need to acknowledge that as well and let people know that Everyone time and this was a totally innocent situation. I thought when I was a freshman in college I was pretty fluent in Spanish. I'd lived in Spain and and my college roommate was taking Spanish 101 I was in Spanish. I was 300 400 level Spanish from the freshman even from my first semester So he's taking Spanish 101. I thought he's working on Spanish homework. So I'm helping him out I'm trying to help you know, that's it. No, that's not how it would be said You know, but I and without really thinking about it. I wasn't I wasn't cheating for him. I wasn't doing the work I was assisting him in his homework when he took it in his teacher said so who helped you with this and he said well My roommate, he's you know, help me with it a little bit He speaks Spanish and and she said I can tell because this is way beyond anything We've worked. This is not something that you would know at this level So really he should have at least said, you know, I got some help with this and my roommate pitched in a little bit Probably probably a little too much quality. Honestly in those situations, but but so, you know, it's hard to hear somebody speak a language poorly when you're You know it a little bit, right? But When we receive assistance, we need to acknowledge that and credit give credit where credit is due and really now more than ever We're relying on the honor system And particularly at Christian institutions. We just lean into the honor system almost entirely For online classes for in-person classes, but you have access to everything now So we really rely as faculty and as an institution on the honor system as much as anything the people the idea that people are Good and we'll do the right thing and hopefully that's the case. So so But there's this level of trust that needs to exist between the individual and student and Everybody else around them their classmates instructors or institution and everything else So and that's hard to build with when these things are present So we need to keep that in mind that that can really violate trust and destroy that trust We also need to consider fairness in academic honesty What we're trying to avoid and the key term here is we don't want people to get to have an unfair advantage And no student should have an unfair advantage over another student Now is it unfair that you know if we if I had been in the same class as my college roommate taking Spanish one-on-one Would it have been unfair that I had such an extensive knowledge of more extensive knowledge of Spanish than he did? No, I'd earned that right I earned that I learned it myself I lived in Spain I I put in the time and I learned that so having an advantage in Spanish would not have been unfair necessarily But did he have an unfair advantage? Maybe because he had a roommate who spoke Spanish and was getting a lot of help from that person Yeah, maybe so, but so what we're looking for is not that people don't have an advantage Everybody's gonna have an advantage in some way in some aspects probably what we want to avoid is those unfair advantages If you've earned that advantage, that's one thing if it's just been given to you That's another specifically this comes up in academic honesty that when we think about things like obtaining prior access so You have a test coming up if you get a copy of that exam before Everybody else would have a chance to study and see the items even if the answers aren't there You have a chance to review what's gonna be on the test and so forth That's an unfair advantage that you have over the other students and that violates that that ethic of fairness and in academic honesty Likewise, if you're providing access to something that's an issue if you have If you had a test that morning in the class right and you somehow have the exam Or you're taking an online class with somebody and you let them watch while you're taking an exam So they know what's gonna be on the exam. You're providing access. That's a violation of fairness That's giving that person then an unfair advantage in that situation and then the use of unauthorized aides You know, I get more relying on the honor system so much here that in classes where you are online or different things But even if it's in person if you're using something that you're not allowed to that violates fairness It gives you an unfair advantage over the other students in the class and and presents a violation of academic honesty So we need to be cautious of these things and be sure that we're we're just creating and and sustaining a level playing ground For everyone in the system. That's the ideal What's any talk about respect, you know This is this kind of indicates when you give respect you get respect and vice for and the cycle just keeps going but respect is an important part of academic honesty and academic integrity First and foremost we need to avoid any Inappropriate or disrespectful behavior. That's again to everybody. That's to your instructors with your instructors That's with your classmates. That's you know, we need to Step it up and have a different kind of attitude a different kind of air in an academic sense I mean, hopefully that carries over everywhere, but but we need to avoid that kind of Inappropriate and disrespectful behavior. We need to also avoid obviously disruptive and threatening behavior would be a violation of academic honesty and integrity you're creating an environment that is not appropriate and not Not a positive learning experience, then that's going to be an issue When you look at the obstruction or interference with another person's work that is a lack of respect that violates academic honesty and academic integrity can you're creating it could be creating an unfair environment, but at the very least you're creating maybe a hostile environment where somebody's focus isn't on what they're learning it's then on On what your behavior is right? And so that's an issue. That's an issue Then the misuse of university resources is the lack of respect again for everybody involved It's a lack of respect for the institution lack of respect for your classmates creates an unfair advantage So when we misuse university resources in whatever way That's a violation of academic honesty and the academic honesty policy As far as responsibility in in this sense of academic honesty you have Certain responsibilities. There are certain things the institution is responsible for right there They're responsible for assigning faculty who are appropriately credentialed and and things like that and providing an environment for you to learn The faculty are responsible for providing the content and their content expertise and providing grading and feedback and so forth They have and and maintaining the the classroom Environment, but you have responsibilities as well as a student outside of just doing your homework and and just showing up and sitting down in the Seat. First of all, it's your responsibility to know the standards of the institution It's possible that different classes have different late Work policies for example different policies regarding what they will accept after the deadline if they will accept anything after the deadline And and what kind of penalty there will be those types of things so Obviously the university has an overarching Policy and things that they will allow won't allow but then within that instructors and faculty typically have Discretion to make decisions on on those types of things again within that framework It's your responsibility to know the standards of the institution and also the the standards for that particular class If they're different from one to the other you can't just go to one instructor and so well my own instructor Let me turn this in late or only took you know 10% off instead of 15% off or whatever Look, it's your responsibility to know the standards in the institution and I always tell students It's gonna be the same when you enter the workforce You're gonna have different supervisors even if you're in the same position you may all of a sudden have a different boss, right? Different bosses like things done differently. So it's your responsibility to get to know what their Preferences are just like it is for you for you to know the standards of that institution It's your responsibility to know that to understand and be aware of the penalties for that violation, you know and and just be prepared to suffer those consequences if you if you're late with something or if you violate another Aspect of the academic integrity policy. It's your responsibility to understand what the penalties for that could be You also have a responsibility to say something, you know That the government's fond of saying see something say something now, right? And that relates to terrorism, but really the same thing applies to academic honesty If you're not the person who's cheating that's great But if you see somebody who is cheating and or know somebody is cheating and you just don't say anything That's complicity. That's that's you as an accessory so to speak that's you as a part of that violation and So you need to be aware that silence is not you know Just because you're not doing the thing if you're aware of it and you don't say anything Then you are just as guilty as the people who are actually doing it and ignorance is not a valid excuse Just saying why I didn't know that was the policy. I didn't know that that was the late policy I didn't know that this was the the consequence for violating this this academic honor You know an academic standards here. That's not excuse. It's your responsibility to know ignorance is not a valid excuse So you you mix all these things together and they all work together and they're all intertwined But that really gives us an overview of academic integrity and academic honesty It's really important for you to find out specifically. What are the academic? honesty policies of this institution and of this course and whatever course you're in whatever instructor you're working with But you know again That's your responsibility to find those things out to be aware of them and then to follow those guidelines and even exceed those guidelines This is not an area where you want to just do the absolute minimum if you can exceed those guidelines and establish that kind of trust with your Institution your faculty and your fellow classmates, then you will be in a much better situation. I promise you academically If you have questions about anything related to academic honesty academic integrity The policies for the course you're in or the institution you're with Please let me know. I'd love to hear from you via email and in the meantime I hope that you will give strong consideration to your role in academic honesty and integrity and And continue to to uphold those standards to the best of your ability