Search Page

A Wall Street Journal analysis of data from more than a dozen large US public universities found that in the 2014-15 school year, the schools recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students. They recorded one such report per 100 domestic students. Faculty and domestic students interviewed said it appears that substantial numbers of international students either don’t comprehend or don’t accept US standards of academic integrity.

Hackers attempted to change grades at a Fairfax County high school, using a cunning attack that began with an email from a school panel charged with upholding honor and integrity, according to a search warrant. Oakton High School in Vienna, Va., is just the latest in a string of secondary schools, colleges and universities nationwide to be targeted — often by meddling students — in attempts to turn F’s into A’s in virtual grade books.

According to the International Center for Academic Integrity, about 68 % of undergraduate students and about 43 % of graduate students admit to cheating on tests or in written assignments. Several studies point to a similar problem in high school. Technology has made it easier to cheat in exams and on writing assignments, but it is also making it increasingly easier to be caught.

The Office of Academic Integrity opened by the University at Buffalo is a centralized space to help support and advocate for academic integrity. The new policy allows undergraduate students to remediate accusations of academic integrity before permanently placing them on their records through the remediation process. This involves a four-module online course that covers academic integrity is and provides strategies on how to achieve success with honesty.

The Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities hearing board found 34 undergraduates and 27 graduate students to violate academic integrity guidelines. According to academic integrity experts, graduate students are more likely to make accidental citation mistakes, while undergraduates are more inclined to directly copy information from other sources or purchase essays to pass off as their own. Officials put undergraduates who fall below the 2.0 GPA threshold under academic probation, and graduate students cannot receive a degree with a GPA of less than 3.0.

The University of California-Berkeley trusts its professors to design evaluation methods that balance concerns with the imperative of academic integrity during the pandemic. In the meantime, to ensure that students do not cheat during exams, a "browser lock" method will be introduced. This will prevent students from switching from one window or tab to another while taking online tests.

All of the exam questions for a Finance 311 class were loaded onto external websites while the exam was in progress. The release of the final exam scores and overall course grades have therefore been delayed pending an investigation into potential academic integrity violations. Students caught cheating can incur penalties from the Office of Student Conduct, including a 70% reduction on their exam grades, having to pass a module on academic integrity, a flag on their permanent record, and a $100 fine.

14 students from the University of Calgary taking a third-year geology course received academic misconduct notices after sharing tutorial answers in an online chatroom. According to one student, the course was an open book and the professor gave them contradictory and confusing instructions. In addition to getting failing grades, students who accept guilt or are found guilty following an appeal are also required to take academic integrity workshops.

The 2017 Kessler International survey highlighted that “79% of students admitted to plagiarizing their assignments from the internet, 42% purchased custom papers online, and 28% said they had a service take their online classes for them.” An expert on integrity and ethics in education argues that minimizing cheating during remote education requires effective communication and instruction, and that classwork and assessments should focus on mastery rather than performance.