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Fighting Temptation

But, practically speaking, how can a university ensure fidelity from its students? "We need to have the three 'P's: prevention, policing and policy," answers Shore. "Prevention is the critical step, but the numbers of students who admit to cheating are lower in universities with high admission standards and with clearly known policies and processes." McGill has a procedure to deal with plagiarism cases, but the University's Academic Integrity Subcommittee is developing more proactive plans as well.

Over the past five years, the subcommittee has initiated some aggressive consciousness-raising on campus. "The question is not only how do you stop cheating and plagiarism, but how do you foster academic integrity in the University, and how do you teach this value to students?" says Morton Mendelson, Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Science as well as a co-founder and former chair of the subcommittee. "Each year, our new students have to be socialized into the values of the University."

McGill has a well-tested code of student conduct and disciplinary procedures, and the University has instituted a number of measures to foster academic integrity and deter academic dishonesty, but the subcommittee is still discussing other ways to advance these issues. Every course outline now includes the statement that "McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of plagiarism, cheating and other academic offences" - and then refers students to the Academic Integrity website, www.mcgill.ca/integrity. To emphasize the point, Starkey points to Chapter Three in the Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities, aka "The Green Book," distributed to all students upon admission: "The integrity of University academic life and of the degrees the University confers is dependent upon the honesty and soundness of the teacher-student learning relationship and, as well, that of the evaluation process."

"The point is that if these relationships are to flourish, everyone has a responsibility," says Starkey, whose subcommittee includes representatives from across the University community: students, teaching assistants, professors and staff. "We want professors to explain what academic integrity and plagiarism mean in their courses: for instance, in one class, group work might be fostered; in another it might be prohibited."

Early results suggest that the conversation is taking place. When the Dean of Students Office surveyed first-year students last fall, a majority claimed they had at least a passing familiarity with the idea of academic integrity. Says Starkey, "They will at least be able to quote from their course outline. That's a start because they're talking about it." And talk matters. Says Mendelson, "The University's ethos, especially as reflected in discussions among students, professors and administrators, is one of the best predictors of academic honesty."

Policies with Teeth

The ethos demands more than talk, though. There must also be some bite: rules must exist, along with systems and procedures to enforce them. In 2002, McGill ran a trial project to test a text-matching software service, TurnItIn.com, used by a number of North American institutions, including the University of British Columbia. Students in the handful of undergraduate classes participating in the project were asked to submit their papers to the TurnItIn web-site for verification: the company's software scans both the Internet and a private database that includes academic articles from journals and books, as well as previously submitted student essays, to find strings of text which match those found in the submitted paper, and it then produces a report for instructors to consult online. When grading papers, professors must check to ensure that any blocks of text identified by the TurnItIn report are quoted properly and the sources referenced.

The trial ran into an obstacle, though, when a student refused to send his paper to the site, arguing that the process "treats students as though we were guilty until proven innocent." The controversy around the case, which received national media coverage, underscores some of the difficulties in creating a policy.

"We need to build a consensus on what will work best for McGill as a community of scholars," says Starkey. But consensus-building is no simple task. In a proposal submitted to the University Senate in March 2003, the subcommittee suggested that the University adopt TurnItIn as an anti-plagiarism tool. The proposal fell before opposition by the SSMU, which argued that the company's database constituted an infringement of intellectual property and that the proposed policy did not include adequate opting-out mechanisms for students unhappy with the concept of submitting their work to a corporate database. Some students objected to the company making money from their texts.

Mendelson argues that each paper is but a small drop in the database that includes the millions of web pages added to the Internet daily. "Of course," he notes, "we all have our positions in this discussion, and certainly rational and intelligent people can differ."

Students don't necessarily have an easier time coming to a consensus among themselves. "Some students believe the use of text-matching software is a great idea. They know there are some people cheating and don't want to think they have to cheat to compete with them," says Mendelson. The initial objection, however, is still something he takes very seriously. "The problem of trust, and the perception of mistrust, is something that really has to be handled carefully. It is hard to foster academic integrity in a climate of mistrust."

The "mistrust" quotient for Mendelson lies very much in the realm of presentation and interpretation. "The text-matching software is like having a highway sign saying that there is radar ahead," he argues. "It doesn't assume everyone is speeding, but simply says 'Don't speed' - and lets people know that if they do, they'll be caught."

Last December, the Academic Integrity Subcommittee submitted a revised policy to the Senate, proposing that McGill obtain an institutional licence for a text-matching software approved by the Committee on Student Affairs, and ensuring that both professors and students are allowed alternative strategies to verify the originality of papers. The proposal passed, although with the SSMU abstaining.

"We still have issues with the policy," says Bryan. "But the number of departments and individual professors getting licences for TurnItIn.com was increasing, and in the absence of a policy, anything goes. So our philosophy was that it is better to have an imperfect policy than none at all." The new policy will not be activated until the University has actually acquired an institutional licence from a vendor. "But it's nice to put this one to rest," says Starkey. "We can turn our attention to other issues of academic integrity."