Integrity is the primary social glue in our, indeed in any, community. Universities take academic integrity very seriously. We trust students and colleagues to do and take responsibility for their own work and to acknowledge their use of others’ work. On the other hand, we dislike seeming to distrust one another by talking a lot about academic integrity. Hence students sometimes get caught by surprise for violations.
It is important for students to understand that academic integrity is more rigorous in college than in high school – closer to the norms of the academic professions – and in some ways more problematic. For example, students often help each other or ask parents for help with homework and papers and assume that such help is a normal part of student life, certainly not needing special acknowledgment. However, authors of published articles routinely acknowledge the help of colleagues who suggest ideas or sources or who edit work; that is, they acknowledge the help of peers. Further, students sometimes think that they need to footnote only direct quotations. In fact, they need to footnote any idea they use from any source. A complicating factor in academic integrity is that new pedagogy emphasizes cooperative learning. What does this imply about doing one’s own work? The implications may vary from course to course and from situation to situation. Students need to be sure they understand the rules in any given course. When in doubt, they should ask.
If your son or daughter asks you for help with a paper or other academic exercise, please consider the implications of such help. Whether or not it violates academic integrity, helping your child at this stage in her or his academic career may not be the appropriate pedagogical response. After all, students are here at the university to learn how to be intellectual adults by acquiring skills in independent critical and analytical thought. Helping them to foster those skills is a wise investment.
The university’s Code of Academic Integrity includes procedures for handling accusations of cheating. We urge you to urge your daughters and sons to read this code. We have asked our advisees to read it and note at least one thing they find surprising or ambiguous. We can assure you, they find this exercise more useful than they expect they will. The Code can be found online at http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html.