Academic Intergrity

So I had specified in a previous blog post the importance of understanding the authorship rules, for graduate students in graduate school. Many times these rules tend to be unclear, and this causes an issue. I’ve been working on getting all the information needed together, to be prepared to put together a final document. I’ve been researching different disciplines in a random sense. At first, I thought there wasn’t a huge difference between disciplines. Then, I found that there was significant difference between the strictness of certain fields. I found that interesting.

The second part to this, was pinning down what number of fields are satisfactory to cover all the parts of VT. After all, it would be difficult to have the rules for every single major at VT. However, I can get to as close as I can with something as similar as something else would be. For example, one engineering may be enough… Or I’ll list all engineering majors and state the differences, etc. Although, I’m sure I don’t know all the majors at VT.

Next, another challenge is giving my sources credit. It is difficult to do this in a brochure format, especially that fine print in cases like this can be too small to be read. Also, another concern I’m having, while working on this, is embodying all the majors, and letting people know that these are the “official requirements”. However, sometimes people stray away from these initial requirements.

Last but not least, I’ve always been compelled to research self-plagiarism.  I felt like it’s a compelling topic, because many tend to overlook that it exists… However, it is detrimental to avoid self-plagiarism. I’m unsure if I’ll have sufficient time to do this or not, but I’ve been really interested, least said!

This week, we examined a lot of different ethical methodologies and views… And famous theories that somehow shape the ethics of everyday life. Some people gain their ethics through their moral values and beliefs. Others think it’s common sense, and doesn’t need a rocket scientist. Some people get inspired ethically from their religious beliefs. In fact, some people follow the rules and regulations of society. Everyone has a unique formation of their ethical views, and are driven by it according to who they are. However, due to a large variety of backgrounds, and people the ethical rules are placed on ethical societies.

In my personal view, we are all influenced by the families we are brought up in, our religious views, and our place in the midst of society. In fact, the way we deal with ethics is influenced somewhat by our friends and those around us. There is a mixture of both. I think that i personally have a heavier mix of the morals and values I was brought up on,  my religious teachings, and societal norms. A lot of times, ethics comes as common sense to me. Sometimes I feel like we are made with this indicator that helps us establish right from wrong, based on a judgement. Also, in my experience, many times, people act in an ethical way or lack thereof because they wanna look good in a click or with their friends. However, usually it’s a good idea not to let peer pressure affect people in situations like these.

However, I do greatly appreciate the codes of Ethics. When people have different backgrounds, the codes of ethics make them stand on even footing and have the same fair chance. Nonetheless, it’s wonderful to have a strong ethical background, and to be ready to face the world essentially.

Watching the two videos has been interesting. They speak a lot for the present situation in higher education, as it is presently!  The first video was interesting, in the sense that it highlighted the reality from student’s perspective. It spoke to important issues, such as class size, student debt, and many more. It’s actually interesting, and it felt so familiar. It was an interesting expression through signs shown by students. This was the first video.

The second video, was called “Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk” which can be found here. This is an interesting documentary about higher education, that was shown on PBS. I thought I’d just watch some of this documentary, and blog… However, it’s just a really interesting documentary, and it is true.

It’s quite shocking, when you hear about how personality types affect people’s success in college. And how people need to learn more about the resources available from the very beginning. It’s necessary to show people these resources. The documentary starts out with people who dropped out of college, because they didn’t have access to the resources necessary from the beginning. It’s sad to see freshmen dropping out, just because they needed more support or encouragement. It’s sad to see that matters of grade inflation and lack of communication of resources affect people’s enrollment. It’s sad that people worry about student retention by curving, rather than finding a way to help students to learn.

I liked how a portion of the documentary also focused on how to be a good teacher, and what things teachers do aren’t good. At the same time, I thought it was an amazing way to use the teleprompters for students to transmit answers to classes. And how they create discussions in the classroom in the midst of a huge lecture hall, and how people interact, despite the class setup. I thought that was neat. Also, living and learning communities in colleges also heavily impact students, and I thought that was great!

It was also interesting that they discussed the tenure track, and the risks people face… And how teaching to students, and how it affects students… Also, how teachers cut corners… and how they’re paid less than football coaches… So much in there that needs to be fixed!

There are a numerous amount of topics in this documentary that make it draining in a sense. Sometimes you wish you had a magical wand, to fix all the problems in higher education…  However, every faculty member has the ability to improve the world, and make things better… Make higher education as ideal as possible. I think students really need encouragement, support, and innovative ways to teach!

This week I examined the code of ethics for electrical engineering, or the IEEE Code of Ethics. I had examined this prior to this, for the Future Professoriate course, and wrote a blog post about it. This can be found here. However, I’m taking a fresh look at the Code of Ethics, and I’m blogging about it.

Looking at the IEEE Code of ethics, it is clear that Ethics are a high priority for Electrical Engineers. A lot of the list of the code ethics are things of what appears to be Common Sense, for someone who has some extent of morals and values.  For example, it should be really obvious that one should worry for the well-being of others, and guard their well-being with their life. This is particularly true, especially with the products engineers make. In addition, it should be clear that bribes are wrong, especially in a professional setting.

When looking at the code of conducts this time around, I was impressed by the duty I have as an Electrical Engineer, especially from the respect in which is mentioned in the code of conduct. I was surprised that part of my duty is to help “improve the understanding of technology”.  That’s both surprising and impressive in my view. I love spreading technological knowledge, so I loved that! Also, to give, take, and appreciate criticism is part of the code of conduct.. And I think that’s great, especially when there are whistle blowers at time. They can directly approach people doing the wrong things, rather than taking a random approach to overcoming issues in a work environment. Also, there is a necessity of helping people become more competent with their engineering skills. In other words, I wouldn’t be doing my colleague a favor by helping him or her. Instead, it is a duty. I love that about the code of ethics.

Also, it seems like it’s always important to add that prejudice and preset biases are to be kept away from the professional life. And that one should not discriminate due to any thing regarding the individual’s color, faith, race, etc. I understand this is an important part to always have in Codes of Ethics… Until the world lacks prejudice one day soon.

Great 2nd pass through the code of ethics for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers! Thanks for this!

This week’s post was about Copyright issues, and Creative Commons. I thought this is a very useful unit, especially for graduate students. This is particularly true, due to lack of sufficient knowledge, especially with graduate students working on their thesis or dissertation. This calls to a further more awareness of what the rules are, and what is necessary to abide by them.

Copyright laws and fair use is something very commonly heard of, especially in academia. Once someone enters a college or university, they’re subjected to parts of books under fair use. And this is very common. Nonetheless, it doesn’t always mean that people that people should take a ton of information out of a book for fair use. I think common sense is sometimes necessary, as well as knowledge of the laws.

As for the laws, one should be aware of them, and understand them. The Virginia Tech website titled Can I use it? expresses this greatly, and shows the rules and regulations greatly and clearly. This is very important to be aware of. In fact, the Virginia Tech Library website provides good resources for the copyright laws.

The most enjoyable part of this unit for me was learning about Creative Commons. Creative Commons, is a really brilliant idea that’s built off of the fact that people should share information together. Creative Commons allows people to choose the copy rights for their material according to the way the author makes it fit. However, there should be some type of leniency with how much people can do with it.  I played with Creative Commons for a bit, and I love how it’s clear to figure out what can be used and what can’t be used. I thought it was great.

I think this will be a useful resource once one begins to teach in academia, etc. Wonderful week! Thank you!

This week’s post for academic integrity, regard choosing the topic that will be pursued in my final project. The area of authorship in academic integrity has been kind of intriguing to me. I just realized how there are so many rules all over, and in different fields. I also was really shocked that you can plagiarize yourself… Using your own words…

There are two topics in mind right now regarding academic integrity, that are of interest for me. First, could be regarding the authorship rules, and how it varies in fields… And how people can be more conscientious of these rules… And stop doing others favors and making them authors. I think this is something general graduate students don’t have in mind, and in fact some violate these without realizing they’re violating an important rule….

The second topic that’s of interest to me is about plagiarizing oneself. I’m interested in learning more about the rules of using your own work after it’s been published. In fact, recently I was in the middle of a discussion that required using figures previously published by some of the authors, and work that wasn’t published… The main authors were trying to figure out how to get permission, and also give credit to those with unpublished work that didn’t contribute directly to their paper, but instead were contributors to something not directly related.. Watching their entangled discussion, I felt that had I published before or had expertise to the area, I could give my 10 cents about it.. So I wanted to gain knowledge in the area…

So those are the two areas I’m considering for my final project. I’ll narrow it down to one of those two soon… Or maybe I’ll do both briefly…

It is clearly evident, that authorship rules vary from discipline to discipline. However, some things about authorship are clear, and aren’t that difficult to be followed. First of all, an author of a paper has to actually contribute to the paper. Someone who didn’t do anything for the sake of the paper shouldn’t get authorship on it. That’s first and foremost. Second, students shouldn’t put random authors on their paper because they’ve done them a favor before. That’s just not right. Third, if someone works on a team but didn’t contribute to a paper, they can’t also be an author. It doesn’t make sense.

Evidently, when I began this section, all I could think of was Dean DePauw’s advice in last semester’s course about authorship. If different folks are working on a paper, they should agree on who deserves authorship and how to divide the work.  In addition, based on the division of work, one should know who deserves first authorship versus third authorship. Some disciplines require authors to both contribute intellectually and to the written product in order to get authorship. In ECE many times the first author is the one who writes the paper. At the same time he or she contributes the most to the material formulated.  Anyone who contributed to the intellectual product should be considered an author.

Authorship is a complicated topic, because academia has a lot of different fields that handle this topic differently. One may be in a field that puts names on papers in alphabetical order as stated here. Disciplines treat authorship differently, and this should be taken in mind. This complicates the issue greatly. I recall a medicine article last semester which required all the authors to contribute to the writing and the intellectual property in the paper. This is essential for a good paper in medicine.

When thinking about the arts, they don’t exactly have an issue with plagiarism per say. They allow people to copy and take info from each other. That is different than a lot of fields. Or you would thinks so until you realize that “Everything is a Remix”. 

When you consider the “Everything is a Remix” concept, you realize that everyone is picking up info from other people in other disciplines. The difference is they’re giving other people credit in the form of citations, or in the form of credits on a movie or so. I think it’s all the same, but how others are acknowledged differs, essentially.

So long as integrity and fairness is mastered , authorship can be mastered as well.

This week’s readings and work has been quite entertaining for me. I was fascinated by the Monkey’s Selfie this week’s module began with, and the lawsuit for the monkey to claim rights, rather than the photographer. Since the Monkey took the Selfie. However, in my view, I kind of think that both the monkey and the photographer should have rights to the photo. For two reasons. First of all, the monkey definitely couldn’t of set up the camera on his own. He probably doesn’t even own a camera. So he couldn’t of done it without a camera, and without the photographer. Secondly, the photographer didn’t take the selfie himself. The monkey did. So I think they should have equal rights to the photo. At least that’s my speculation on the whole topic. However, I like the fact that if the monkey gets rights to the picture, this will help improve their habitat, and help reduce extinction. Anyways, all the details and information referenced above can be found in the article named “Should a Monkey own a Copyright?”, which can be found here.

Secondly, I really enjoyed the citation tools discussed in this module. I’ve been using EndNote since I was an undergrad. I love it. I love the convenient technique in Google Scholar that allows the citation to be pulled into EndNote directly. In fact, the plug-in can be linked to Microsoft Word, and as one is writing you can cite something in text. This, in my view, is very useful, and is wonderful. However, it costs money after one graduates. This is really difficult to sustain in the real world. Not just that, but I heard that VT won’t support EndNote in the future. Here’s the reference on Virginia Tech’s website saying that.

At the same time, Zotero, is known to play the same role as EndNote. It’s something everyone has been recommending instead of EndNote, especially that EndNote’s access will end sometime soon. We have about 1 year and a few months left for EndNote, or whenever we graduate–Whichever comes first. I read a little bit about Zotero, and realized it may have a little bit of issues with IEEE and the way it does that citation style… But for a free citation program, definitely can’t complain. Especially that it has a firefox plugin as mentioned online, to allow pulling data out to ease out the citation process.

“The Lab” was a pretty cool experience. It reminded me of something similar I had experienced through ORI, which was called “The Research Clinic”. I wrote a post about it called ORI’S way to promote Ethical Research.

“The Lab” was interesting in the sense that, even with ethical decisions, one should think about the steps taken deeply. For example, I chose to be the graduate student– Ken. At first, I chose to face Greg with the data at question… And that caused me to have to start all over, and reconsider my decision to face him. And then I realized that the options given were limited, to cause us to not create conflicts with lab mates due to a possible data falsification. What this taught me is that it’s okay to stand-up for our beliefs that side with ethics, but to do our best not to cause ourselves excessive inconvenience or issues. In other words, a whole lab doesn’t need to find out that you think that Greg falsified his data… Just the right people!

As for ethics in the news, I feel like that’s something that always comes up on a regular basis. Ethics will forever be a part of the day to day life…  I heard in my Contemporary Pedagogy class about the ethical issues occurring at Mount St. Mary’s regarding trying to discourage “high risk” students from staying in the school.. That is to say, of course, that graduation rates are high, and not include these people in the data… etc.  And this involved the expulsion of some faculty and reinstating them again… A lot can be found here on Google News.

I find the video made by Turnitin interesting, as to why people plagiarize. There are several different causes that motivate people to cheat, according to them. However, the interesting part is, many students don’t count what they’re doing as cheating. Or they don’t necessarily realize it. That to me I found interesting. As to the content of their research, what that summarizes to is if you motivate students, inspire them, teach them well, and teach them ethics… You’ll eliminate the majority of cheating. We just need to get students interested, and teach them ethics… Inspire them, and they’ll do all the magic.

To help students stick within an ethical frame, one must find a way to teach students ethics, and set out the ground rules. Shall students know the rules well, and shall they receive the guidance, mentorship, and resourcefulness to get things done correctly, they will… I think it’s important to remind students of the importance of ethics and how to follow the rules, etc…

I strongly believe that the constitution is an important part of the system at Virginia Tech. It must be there to maintain proper academic integrity, and professional interactions for that matter. There are different levels, as stated on the University Honor Code postings, that are violations to the Honor Code. These violations should be avoided greatly. Reading these violations showed how easy it maybe to gamble with one’s career if the rules are unknown, and they reassured the fact that one should be super careful while writing papers or anything of that sort. Somehow, it is really easy to be referencing a paper, and overlooking to have that original reference there. Sometimes one can pick up information from a branched reference, and not go back to the originator of the idea and give them credit. This maybe a subtle and unintentional type of plagiarism. And sometimes paraphrasing someone’s paper can be really a thin line while writing a paper, even when correct referencing is being performed. That’s why many times the reference should be given credit repetitively, and quotations should be used when necessary. I think this is a struggle people face particularly while they’re writing a literature review, etc.

At the same time, I strongly believe that faculty, staff, and students have a mandatory role to play to help students avoid honor code violations. That role is to simply create awareness, and to teach incoming students what’s right and what’s wrong. This is particularly true, especially when students have different backgrounds. That’s why people should be cognizant of the importance of helping newbies be aware of the risks that exists for improper actions.

Some of the problems with the honor code/ constitution is the lack of awareness. Also, I think it’s an issue also that some students may face honor code violations performed by a minute number of faculty, but become unable to stand up for their right. Sometimes, students and certain faculty also need to be reminded of what the honor code says. I think awareness is the most important part in this entire game.

I think a university would do really really well if they regularly provide training for academic integrity among their students, staff, and faculty. I strongly believe that this is important.  At the same time, I think that there should be regulations to stick to the honor code, and that all members of the university society should be cognizant of their honor code practices. The more honor code practices a university has, the better it will be. Honor Code practices are similar across the board in a lot of universities, and sticking to these codes lead to success.