Most students who passed by the Student Conduct table during Academic Integrity Week said they are aware of the “basics” of academic integrity policies, but large numbers of violations are still reported every year. The topic of academic integrity made headlines last month after allegations of academic misconduct were brought against Wichita State President Richard Muma.
According to academic integrity data from Wichita State University, 365 cases were reported during the 2022-2023 academic year, spanning across all academic colleges.
That’s a 9% increase from the year before. These increases came as student headcount at the university increased by hundreds from fall 2021 to fall 2022.
“When you have more students, you should expect that,” said Ed Sawan, director of the School of Computing.
Sawan said he has dealt with many of these cases firsthand. The College of Engineering, which holds the School of Computing, saw the most cases in 2022-2023: 77% of the 365 cases were filed against students in the college, most being graduate students.
The enrollment increase from fall 2021 to fall 2022 saw a massive uptick in graduate students pursuing a degree in the College of Engineering, doubling from around 800 to more than 1,600 people.
This influx of students severely overwhelmed faculty, and some professors left in response, according to Sawan.
“We had classes that had 200 students,” Sawan said. “It was difficult to conduct exams without problems … so the number of academic integrity violations, of course, was large.”
Following the 2022-2023 school year, the faculty-to-student ratio was addressed in the College of Engineering by replacing the faculty members who left and hiring others to serve as proctors during exams.
The School of Computing is now seeing a fraction of the academic integrity violations it was seeing before. So far this semester, the College of Engineering has reported seven violations out of the total 39.
For the 2023-2024 academic year, 192 academic integrity reports were filed, with graduate students accounting for 60.
So far this semester, nearly 40 reports have been filed, with the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences accounting for more than half of them.
Types of violations
The most common academic integrity violation committed by Wichita State students is plagiarism according to Kyle Wilson, the director of Student Conduct and Community Standards. Through his role, Wilson helps operate academic integrity processes.
In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, 70% of academic integrity cases involved plagiarism.
“You just got to work on those citations and making sure you understand that you need to give credit to other people’s work,” he said.
Improperly citing someone else’s words isn’t the only way students can plagiarize.
“The second-most common issue we see is collaboration,” Wilson said. “There are some instructors that really love when students collaborate and work together on assignments, and then there’s other professors that absolutely do not want them to work together … students think it’s OK in one class so it must be okay everywhere.”
Issues can also arise from using someone else’s graphics or ideas.
Self-plagiarism, otherwise known as “recycling” or unauthorized resubmission, is another problem, Wilson said. For example, turning in a paper a student wrote for a previous class to a different class.
Other offenses include “unauthorized use or possession of materials or resources” (like using a cheat sheet), bribery and in some cases, collaboration.
How to avoid violations, and what to do if you’re accused
To avoid these citations, Wilson suggests an important read for every class: the syllabus.
“You’ve got to read every individual faculty member’s syllabus because it will tell you what is acceptable, and what is not,” Wilson said. “At the end of the day, instructors explain everything in their syllabus.”
However, if a student is accused of an academic policy violation, they shouldn’t immediately panic.
“The biggest thing I can tell students is that if a faculty member accuses you of an academic integrity issue is ‘Just stay calm,’” Wilson said. “We’re here to help you through the process … and you’re not automatically in violation just because a faculty member makes a report.”
The Student Conduct and Community Standards website also has resources for students with questions about academic integrity including links to policies, information on how to avoid violations when using AI and the step-by-step academic integrity process if you receive a violation.
Should a student receive a violation following the Academic Integrity Committee’s decision, they can appeal if they think there was an error during the process that affected their outcome, or if there is new information discovered that was unavailable during the initial review that could change the outcome.
Appeals can be submitted through the online Appeal Request Form.
Sawan said he tries to discourage his students from academic dishonesty.
“I tell the students an example I refer to as ‘reverse shoplifting,’” Sawan said. “Imagine you go to a fancy store, and you shop for a new jacket. You find one and you select it, and you go to the cashier and you pay for it, and when the cashier is distracted, you walk out with the receipt and leave the jacket. You then go to your friends and say, ‘Hey, I have an expensive jacket, see the receipt here.’ And you can get by for a while, but when it (gets) cold and you need the jacket, your friends will say, ‘Where’s the jacket?’”
Sawan uses this metaphor to discourage his students from cheating by comparing a good grade to the metaphor’s receipt, and comparing what the student didn’t learn to the jacket.
Sawan also urges students to consider how this may affect them in a future employment situation.
“It’s the same thing,” Sawan said. “You get your transcript that shows the good grade, and then you get a job, but then at some point, the employer will expect you to do something that’s based on the knowledge that you’re supposed to have from the class. But you will not have it, so you will be fired.”
Wilson said the best way students can avoid any citation is to be mindful of what constitutes cheating and stay informed of professors’ and the college’s policies.
“We want to make sure that the graduates that we have here are graduating with a degree that they earned,” Wilson said.
