It's exam week. That means long hours of staring at the computer in an attempt to coerce a paper to write itself, or slamming your head against your textbook to make the terms enter your long-term memory. Around four in the morning, certain immoral academic shortcuts begin to sound very appealing: swapping physics homework with a friend, conveniently forgetting to cite the arguments for your thesis you found on-line, or even pulling a fire alarm before an exam.
Most people don't give in to the temptation. Some believe that cheating is wrong, and others know that if they cheat, they'll be caught and punished.
"I think people do not cheat because it would be wrong," said Ethics Board Presiding Official senior Ashish Patel,"Those tempted to cheat due to academic stress may think again because of the possible penalties if caught cheating."
It is the job of the Hopkins Ethics Board to instill such healthy fear of academic dishonesty in our student population. The Board, which is comprised of eight to ten members selected by COLA and several faculty members, investigates allegations of violations of the Ethics Constitution and holds hearings to determine guilt and punishment.
The Hopkins Ethics Constitution, which can be found online at http://www.jhu.edu/~ethics, lays out the rules forbidding plagiarism, cheating and academic dishonesty of all kinds and makes it clear that cheating isn't merely punished by a troubled conscience.
The rules are simple: don't use work that isn't your own and don't try to gain an unfair advantage over your peers. Things become complicated when a professor or student reports that they suspect a student of cheating.
Often, a student suspected of cheating will settle the problem with his or her professor and will not appear before an Ethics Board hearing panel.
"An Ethics Board hearing panel is a serious matter," explained Patel, who has presided over all seven hearings this year. "If a student is found guilty of academic misconduct, he or she can face harsh penalties including expulsion, suspension, failure in the course, notation of academic misconduct on the transcript, lowering of the course grade or anything else the hearing panel deems appropriate. If an instance of academic misconduct can be settled between a professor and student, the Board encourages that as long as the settlement is reported to Dean Sheppard and goes into the student's academic file."
Patel also noted that students previously found guilty of ethics violations must appear before the Board if accused again. The Ethics Board introduces students to the Constitution during orientation week.
"During orientation there was there was a really long presentation about ethics," said freshman Max Dement. "There were scenarios about what was ethical according to the code, and I was enlightened about what I could and could not do. So basically, it scared me, and now I have to cite everything and make sure everything is completely original and credited."
According to Patel, such education is one of the Board's most important missions.
"One of the most important roles of the Board is to educate students about academic ethics," said Patel. "The Board worked hard my sophomore year 83 to initiate discussion on ethics among community members. Those discussions led to a greater emphasis on ethical conduct by professors in their classes."
Professors must now explain to their classes their policies regarding plagiarism and cheating at the beginning of each school year.
However, common cheating is on campus remains a point of contention. History professor David Bell, who has served on the Board for three years but is currently on leave, believes that ethical violations are common on campus.
"I think there's a great deal of cheating here," said Bell. "I really have very little way of verifying it. But from what students have told me, it's a problem."
"There's definitely cheating, but it's not as bad as it was in high school," said Dement.
However, both Dement and Bell agree that cheating is more prevalent in the sciences than in the humanities.
"I think that the sciences have more of a problem, in part because it's fairly easy for us in the humanities to design paper topics that make it difficult to plagiarize," said Bell. "In the sciences, there's also a much greater incentive to cheat because they're graded on a curve and there's a greater opportunity to cheat, as well."
"In the sciences, it's quantitative and so it's a lot easier to cheat," said Dement, who noted the ways that students in his chemistry class may be prone to cheat. "On quizzes and things that are on webct, people will collaborate on them. The work in group projects is unfairly distributed a lot of the times. I just don't like the idea that I work so hard and people get an A for not working."
The Hopkins Ethics Constitution applies only to academic integrity, and unlike the famous honor codes of schools such as the University of Virginia and Haverford, does not touch on social or legal responsibility.
"I feel comfortable with the fact that our Constitution covers only academic integrity and that the Board is responsible for handling only cases of academic misconduct. We have a separate Board on campus that handles issues of social integrity," said Patel.
"The honor code is a huge thing here," said UVA freshman Samantha Clarkson. "People are lax with their things, leave their rooms open 84 if they leave a jacket or iPod or the like in some classroom they expect it to remain there or in the lost and found. Usually, things turn out that way."
Clarkson stipulates that this honesty among the student population comes from "some weird Jefferson fetish." "[Students] seem to think he is watching over them from some non-denominational heaven," said Clarkson.
However, UVA was also home to a scandal in May 2001 in which a professor discovered, through the use of plagiarism-detection software, that 122 of his physics students had plagiarized on their papers. Instances such as these lead Bell to believe that honor codes are no longer relevant.
"From what I can see, and from what students have told me, honor codes are not working very well today. I think it's a good idea to stick to our academic agenda."
