Online service helps enforce Honor Code
By CAITLIN EARLY
News Writer
After introducing a number of sweeping changes to the Honor Code at the beginning of this academic year, the University Honor Code Committee recently compiled a set of statistics to evaluate this year's Honor Code cases and violations.
The statistics are representative of all Honor Code cases heard from the beginning of the fall semester through Feb. 3. Some cases were also drawn from the 2002 spring semester.
Across the University's various colleges, the College of Arts, which had 14 Honor Code violations brought before its Honesty Committee, far exceeded the number of cases in the College of Business and the College of Science. The College of Business had three violation cases and the College of Science had one.
Of these 14 Honor Code cases in the College of Arts and Letters, 13 violations were related to Internet plagiarism.
Professor Thomas Flint, faculty Honor Code officer, said the statistics and the number of cases involving Internet plagiarism did not surprise him.
"With my involvement in the Philosophy Department, I have seen the whole issue of Internet plagiarism become more and more serious," said Flint. "A significant number of cases involve basically good people who made bad decisions because the Internet was just two clicks away."
One of the most notable additions made to the Honor Code this year was the University's decision to contract the services of Turnitin.com, an online plagiarism-detection company.
Turnitin.com enables professors and faculty members to submit a student's paper and to receive a set of "Originality Reports" within 24 hours, revealing if any Internet documents or resources are used in the student's work.
While the most contested aspect of the plagiarism-detection company is the direct submission of students' work without any prior indication of plagiarism, Flint said that only a few professors are currently submitting all students' papers to Turnitin.com.
Turnitin.com was used to detect three of the 14 Internet-plagiarism violations in the College of Arts and Letters.
Flint said that most professors and faculty members use Turnitin.com in conjunction with various other search engines to detect student plagiarism.
To date, 63 Notre Dame faculty members are registered with Turnitin.com. In total, 535 students' papers and reports have been submitted to the service.
The University has extended its contract with Turnitin.com for the next academic year.
With the incidences of computer-related cheating on the rise across college campuses throughout the country, Flint said he realizes that there is no easy way to combat this widespread problem.
"In the most idealistic sense, it should be the aim of everyone in the Notre Dame community to pursue truth and goodness," Flint said. "Plagiarism cuts right at the heart of this idea by falsely presenting work which is not one's own. It goes against what we are and should be about at a Catholic university."
A series of other changes made to the Honor Code in the past year involve the organizational structure of the Honor Code Committee and increased student involvement.
Under the new provisions of the Honor Code, departmental honesty committees, which are now comprised of a majority of students, preside over Honor Code violation hearings.
While the broad provisions set forth in the Honor Code Handbook guide the students serving on the honesty committees, the committees ultimately determine the specific type of the penalty based on the nature of the offense.
"The code is working very well procedurally. I have sat in on quite a number of hearings, and I am always impressed with the seriousness with which the honesty committees are conducted," Flint said.
While no new changes will be made to the Honor Code immediately, Flint cited that some additional issues, such as the implications of the honor code in study abroad programs, will be addressed in the years to come.
"In respect to our Honor Code system at Notre Dame, I would say it is far preferable to what many other universities have," Flint said. "There is no panacea for cheating or Internet-plagiarism because there will always be people who will take the short and easy way out, even at Notre Dame. I am hopeful that the Honor Code will encourage students to continue to remember what we're about as a University."
All News Stories for Wednesday, March 26, 2003
