DOCSLIB.ORG

Essay Mills and Other Contract Cheating Services: to Buy Or Not To

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Essay Mills and Other Contract Cheating Services: to Buy Or Not To Draper et al. International Journal for Educational Integrity (2021) 17:13 International Journal for https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-021-00081-x Educational Integrity ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access Essay mills and other contract cheating services: to buy or not to buy and the consequences of students changing their minds Michael Draper1* , Thomas Lancaster2, Sandie Dann3, Robin Crockett3,4 and Irene Glendinning5 * Correspondence: m.j.draper@ swansea.ac.uk Abstract 1Swansea University, Swansea, UK Full list of author information is Very few parts of the world have legislation that prohibits the operation or the available at the end of the article promotion of contract cheating services. This means that commercial companies providing such services can formally register and operate in most countries. If a student enters into an agreement with a contract cheating provider, what rights do they have to change their mind and what are the risks if they choose to do so? This paper examines the question through legal, institutional and societal lenses, showing that although a student has the consumer rights to withdraw from a contract with an essay mill, they may also be putting their future at risk by doing so. Contract cheating providers are now embedded within many institutions, using sharp practices to connect with vulnerable customers, but are also perfectly placed to blackmail students or threaten to report them to their institution if they ask to cancel their order. The paper argues that, while not condoning the practice of contract cheating, supportive processes need to be in place to help students at risk as part of standard institutional duty of care. This must be backed up by institutional policy that considers academic integrity as a core value for all. Keywords: Contract cheating, Contract formation, Consumer rights, Student behaviour, Educational institutional policies Introduction The contract cheating industry, those services that (offer to) supply essays and other work for students to (mis) use during the assessment process, is proactive in encour- aging students to cheat. Despite the unethical nature of this industry, at the time of writing this paper, legislation prohibiting commercial contract cheating only applies in New Zealand, Australia, Republic of Ireland and in several states within the USA (Draper et al. 2017). Even where legislation exists, companies supplying work to stu- dents can be based anywhere in the world (Draper and Newton 2017). © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Draper et al. International Journal for Educational Integrity (2021) 17:13 Page 2 of 13 Given that essay mills operate with apparent impunity in most jurisdictions, what are the legal rights of students who initially choose to commission a bespoke assignment, but then subsequently have second thoughts and change their mind? The right for stu- dents to withdraw has not been previously discussed in the literature, but it is necessary for student protection. The contract cheating industry is such that it preys on vulner- able students, leaving them positioned to becoming victims of unfair or illegal actions. Immediately someone makes an enquiry about using a third party to complete their as- sessments, they become open to threats of exposure. Extortion threats that some of the authors have encountered involve students who have not actually purchased anything or not submitted the work provided. A student may be unaware of consequences such as these when they are seduced by contract cheating provider marketing or may later realise the benefits that come from operating with academic integrity. Can such students withdraw from the contract they have made with a contract cheating provider and what are the risks if they decide to do so? Essay mills are defined by the UK Quality Assurance Agency as organisations or indi- viduals, usually with an online presence, that contract with students to complete assign- ments for a fee (QAA 2020). The original definition of contract cheating, put forward by Clarke and Lancaster (2006) refers to “the submission of work by students for aca- demic credit which the students have paid contractors to write for them”. Despite the original paper describing contract cheating examples of varied assessment types, most notably computer programming, some subsequent researchers have equated the term solely with written assessments. Commentators, such as Bretag et al. (2018) have sup- ported Clarke and Lancaster’s(2006) original discussion by suggesting that contract cheating needs to be considered as a nuanced problem that extends beyond essay mills. One such nuance asks when contract cheating begins. If a student puts forward a re- quest to outsource their assessments, is this cheating? If they commission and receive work but do not submit it, have they contract cheated? Other terms are sometimes used synonymously with contract cheating, including assignment outsourcing, commis- sioning, also essay mills and ghost-writing, all depending if the discussion relates to the student or the contract cheating provider. There are also wider concerns such as facili- tation, where students act as agents for contract cheating providers, helping to funnel more business their way in exchange for a financial reward or a discount on future as- signment orders. Contract cheating is arguably more serious than other forms of academic misconduct because there is no honest engagement or endeavour on the part of students who en- gage in such activities. Students who plagiarise or collude with other students also pre- paring assignments need to know enough about the subject in question in order to plagiarise or compile relevant material. By contrast, all contract cheating students need to know is how to share their assignment briefs and arrange any payments. All agents and facilitators need to know is how to put people in contact with each other or to sim- ply forward contact details (Draper et al. 2017). Students can have original essays and assignments produced for them without pay- ment, for instance by relying on friends or family. They can also make arrangements with individual writers. Underground networks of writers operate in many university courses where students can ask another classmate or recent graduate to write an extra Draper et al. International Journal for Educational Integrity (2021) 17:13 Page 3 of 13 version of an assignment for them (Lancaster et al. 2019). Students also directly ap- proach individual writers operating online through their own websites, social media and third-party sites (Lancaster 2019a, 2019b). The focus of this paper is on services arranged through commercial providers which allow students to have assignments completed for them. The paper reviews how essay mills operate, discusses how students form contracts with essay mills, students’ legal rights to withdraw from contracts and how institutions should respond whilst still re- specting their duty of care to students. Sharp practices operated by contract cheating providers are explained throughout. The intention of the paper is to not only provide examples to share with students, discouraging them from engaging with the contract cheating industry, but also to ensure that institutions update their academic regula- tions, policies and procedures to respond to the growing complexity of contract cheat- ing and the possible responses of academic institutions if a student wishes to terminate an agreement with an essay mill. Background The contract cheating industry To understand the legal discussion presented in this paper, an understanding of how the contract cheating industry operates is important. Although research into the oper- ation of the industry is still in its infancy, all indications are that this industry is massive, complex and deceptive (Crockett and Maxwell 2021; Rigby et al. 2015). This section discusses the operation of the essay mill industry, from the range of types of essay mills available, addressing how they recruit and develop new customers, through the production and submission of finished original essays. This section provides only a high-level overview and the actual operation of essay mills can be much more complex. For example, a new contract cheating provider can buy off-the-shelf software to run their essay mill and, for a price, tap into existing net- works of writers and quality assurance services without needing to set up this complex business operation for themselves. Ultimately, it has to be remembered that the raison d’etre of essay mills is to make as much money as possible. It is not about the welfare of the customers, despite what the web sites and marketing materials may claim. This is an industry where providers will exploit any angle to persuade their customers to pay them more money. For example, essay mill employees may join a student suspected of academic misconduct at their University panel or write a letter of reply to an allegation of misconduct – for a sub- stantial fee. All this often takes place beyond the reach of any national legislation.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Descriptive Analysis of Georgia High School Teachers' Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Spring 2007 Descriptive Analysis of Georgia High School Teachers' Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty Amy Manning Rowland Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Recommended Citation Rowland, Amy Manning, "Descriptive Analysis of Georgia High School Teachers' Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty" (2007). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 215. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/215 This dissertation (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF GEORGIA HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY by AMY MANNING ROWLAND (Under the Direction of Walter Polka) ABSTRACT This research study was conducted with the assistance of Georgia high school teachers for the purpose of examining teachers’ perceptions of academic dishonesty during the 2006-2007 school year. Data were gathered to establish teachers’ perceptions of academic dishonesty by exploring what behaviors teachers felt to be academically dishonest, how teachers addressed such occurrences, whether teachers felt any internal conflict regarding academic dishonesty, whether any external pressures were involved in instances of academic dishonesty, and how these experiences affected teachers’ attitudes toward their profession. Results of the study indicated that high school teachers in Georgia consider academic dishonesty to be a prevalent problem. Teachers consider some types of academic dishonesty to be more serious than other types of academic dishonesty.
    [Show full text]
  • Educator Cheating 1
    Educator Cheating 1 Thesis Equivalency Project -- Educator Cheating: Classification, Explanation, and Detection Brad Thiessen Educator Cheating 2 Tests are only useful if they provide accurate information. To ensure the scores obtained from a test will be accurate, test developers spend considerable time, effort, and money to carefully develop test specifications, test items, and administration and scoring procedures. This effort is wasted if examinees cheat on the test. Cheating invalidates the decisions made on the basis of test scores. In general, cheating is defined as: Cheating: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraudulent means to violate rules dishonestly (Merriam-Webster online dictionary) Gregory Cizek, author of the book Cheating on Tests: How To Do It, Detect It, and Prevent It , provides a definition of cheating specific to educational testing. Cizek defines cheating as: Cheating: an attempt, by deception or fraudulent means, to represent oneself as possessing knowledge that one does not actually possess (Cizek, 1999, p.3) Student Cheating Research in cheating on educational tests (the prevalence of cheating, reasons for cheating, and techniques to prevent cheating) has typically focused on the examinees – the students. This research usually takes one of the five following forms: 1. Confession Surveys: Students are asked to confess to cheating they have done in the past. Obviously, it may be difficult to get accurate information from these surveys (even if randomized response techniques are used to encourage students to tell the truth). 2. Accusation Surveys: Students are asked about the behaviors of their peers in regards to cheating. 3. Observations: Student behaviors are observed during test-taking.
    [Show full text]
  • Legal Term for Cheating on Wife
    Legal Term For Cheating On Wife Is Vassili regular or crackpot after concupiscent Noe generate so awhile? Affordable Gordie untidies very round while Spike remains unbreeched and inspired. How peristomatic is Preston when hard-fisted and prepubescent Wit cackle some underbridge? The unsatisfied spouse cheated on discrimination is attorney for worry, wife on incurable insanity of up until they help When your spouse must be responsible for me at times, the terms favorable settlement. Cultural factors are legal questions are legal term. The intensity that in the outcome of the obligation. You from your letter, on legal term for cheating wife was the dependent spouse wins! We are legal action for legal cheating on wife. Child custody of legal term adultery is something to have terms you ask for you from voluntarily engages in this url into account. Focusing on your spouse cheats does not carry out. This is for spousal support. Imagine your reality, but a number of a petition seeking a person other. To legal term for my wife must show his. If you cheated with someone cheating wife cheats his legal term for adultery, is natural to you and think about outside in terms of. He finishes the similarities between a divorce case law may change their own home to a cheating on wife for legal term relationship to one of trust and pay in the original concept. If one does adultery laws that, it makes people cheat on your marital property. This cheating wife cheats his affection is termed in terms have. That one of. Our sleeves and harmony with your wife cheated with a relationship, emotional infidelity is.
    [Show full text]
  • Competing Theories of Blackmail: an Empirical Research Critique of Criminal Law Theory
    Competing Theories of Blackmail: An Empirical Research Critique of Criminal Law Theory Paul H. Robinson,* Michael T. Cahill** & Daniel M. Bartels*** The crime of blackmail has risen to national media attention because of the David Letterman case, but this wonderfully curious offense has long been the favorite of clever criminal law theorists. It criminalizes the threat to do something that would not be criminal if one did it. There exists a rich liter- ature on the issue, with many prominent legal scholars offering their accounts. Each theorist has his own explanation as to why the blackmail offense exists. Most theories seek to justify the position that blackmail is a moral wrong and claim to offer an account that reflects widely shared moral intuitions. But the theories make widely varying assertions about what those shared intuitions are, while also lacking any evidence to support the assertions. This Article summarizes the results of an empirical study designed to test the competing theories of blackmail to see which best accords with pre- vailing sentiment. Using a variety of scenarios designed to isolate and test the various criteria different theorists have put forth as “the” key to blackmail, this study reveals which (if any) of the various theories of blackmail proposed to date truly reflects laypeople’s moral judgment. Blackmail is not only a common subject of scholarly theorizing but also a common object of criminal prohibition. Every American jurisdiction criminalizes blackmail, although there is considerable variation in its formulation. The Article reviews the American statutes and describes the three general approaches these provisions reflect.
    [Show full text]
  • Advance Sheets 305 Nebraska Reports STATE V
    Nebraska Supreme Court Online Library www.nebraska.gov/apps-courts-epub/ 09/29/2021 03:25 PM CDT - 415 - Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets 305 Nebraska Reports STATE v. STABLER Cite as 305 Neb. 415 State of Nebraska, appellee, v. Eddy D. Stabler, appellant. ___ N.W.2d ___ Filed March 27, 2020. No. S-19-360. 1. Jury Instructions. Whether the jury instructions given by a trial court are correct is a question of law. 2. Judgments: Appeal and Error. When reviewing questions of law, an appellate court resolves the questions independently of the conclusion reached by the lower court. 3. Convictions: Evidence: Appeal and Error. Regardless of whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial, or a combination thereof, and regardless of whether the issue is labeled as a failure to direct a verdict, insufficiency of the evidence, or failure to prove a prima facie case, the standard is the same: In reviewing a criminal conviction, an appellate court does not resolve conflicts in the evidence, pass on the credibility of witnesses, or reweigh the evidence; such matters are for the finder of fact, and a conviction will be affirmed, in the absence of prejudicial error, if the evidence admitted at trial, viewed and construed most favor- ably to the State, is sufficient to support the conviction. 4. Sentences: Appeal and Error. An appellate court will not disturb a sen- tence imposed within the statutory limits absent an abuse of discretion by the trial court. 5. Jury Instructions: Proof: Appeal and Error. To establish reversible error from a court’s refusal to give a requested instruction, an appel- lant has the burden to show that (1) the tendered instruction is a correct statement of the law, (2) the tendered instruction is warranted by the evidence, and (3) the appellant was prejudiced by the court’s refusal to give the tendered instruction.
    [Show full text]
  • Thou Shalt Not Steal
    CatholicMom.com Gospel Activity – Celebrating Our Catholic Faith Religious Education Lesson Plan Helpers by Laura Grace Thou shalt not steal. Across 6. ________ is giving back stolen property. 8. An employer is bound to ____ what was agreed upon to his employee. 9. Cheating leads to ______ things when we get older. 10. ______ on tests is stealing information. 12. If we damage or _____ something of another’s, we are required to repair it or replace it. 13. People should pay their _____. Down 1. We are _______ to take or damage what belongs to others. 2. We are to ______ the property of others. 3. Not _______ what we have borrowed is considered stealing. 4. A public official who takes _____ has allowed his decisions to be stolen for money. 5. _______ is stealing with the use of force. 7. Cheating at games, we are taking what we did not _____ or what does not belong to us. 11. _____ is secret stealing. Text Copyright 2007 CatholicMom.com and Laura Grace For additional coloring and word activities related to the Catholic faith, visit www.CatholicMom.com. Feel free to share this activity with your family or students, but please consider a donation to support CatholicMom.com and our mission of celebrating our Catholic Faith. For more information contact [email protected] CatholicMom.com Gospel Activity – Celebrating Our Catholic Faith Religious Education Lesson Plan Helpers by Laura Grace Created by Puzzlemaker at DiscoverySchool.com Answers: (You can put a word bank on the board for younger students). Across 6.
    [Show full text]
  • Vicarious Liability Under Criminal Law in India
    International Journal of Law and Legal Jurisprudence Studies :ISSN:2348-8212:Volume 3 Issue 3 213 VICARIOUS LIABILITY UNDER CRIMINAL LAW IN INDIA Ashwini Priya B.B.A.L.L.B, Chanakya National Law University, Patna, India [email protected] Abstract Vicarious liability is a form of a strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law. This paper discusses the doctrine of Vicarious Liability under Indian criminal law. Vicarious liability also known as joint responsibility liability is a legal theory of liability that empowers the court to hold a person liable for the acts of other. Under this doctrine individuals can be made vicariously liable for a criminal act of others even if they merely helped to further the crime in some way example aiding and abetting criminal activities. This often occurs in the context of civil law. In a criminal context, vicarious liability assigns guilt, or criminal liability, to a person for wrongful acts committed by someone else. This doctrine is considered to be fundamentally flawed under criminal law because it is based on “respondent superior” principles that are concerned with distributing loss caused by tortious act. The paper mainly focuses on the vicarious liability of the state in criminal offences, and also of corporations. Keywords-criminal law, intention, responsibility, vicarious liability Introduction Vicarious liability is a form of a strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law doctrine of agency ; respondeat superior – the responsibility of the superior for the acts of their subordinate, or, in a broader sense, the responsibility of any third party .1 Vicarious liability also known as joint responsibility liability is a legal theory of liability that empowers the court to hold a person liable for the acts of other.
    [Show full text]
  • A Timely History of Cheating and Fraud Following Ivey V Genting Casinos (UK)
    The honest cheat: a timely history of cheating and fraud following Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd t/a Crockfords [2017] UKSC 67 Cerian Griffiths Lecturer in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Lancaster University Law School1 Author email: [email protected] Abstract: The UK Supreme Court took the opportunity in Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd t/a Crockfords [2017] UKSC 67 to reverse the long-standing, but unpopular, test for dishonesty in R v Ghosh. It reduced the relevance of subjectivity in the test of dishonesty, and brought the civil and the criminal law approaches to dishonesty into line by adopting the test as laid down in Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn Bhd v Tan. This article employs extensive legal historical research to demonstrate that the Supreme Court in Ivey was too quick to dismiss the significance of the historical roots of dishonesty. Through an innovative and comprehensive historical framework of fraud, this article demonstrates that dishonesty has long been a central pillar of the actus reus of deceptive offences. The recognition of such significance permits us to situate the role of dishonesty in contemporary criminal property offences. This historical analysis further demonstrates that the Justices erroneously overlooked centuries of jurisprudence in their haste to unite civil and criminal law tests for dishonesty. 1 I would like to thank Lindsay Farmer, Dave Campbell, and Dave Ellis for giving very helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article. I would also like to thank Angus MacCulloch, Phil Lawton, and the Lancaster Law School Peer Review College for their guidance in developing this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Academic Dishonesty Among College Students. Issues in Education. INSTITUTION Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 360 903 HE 026 639 AUTHOR Maramark, Sheilah; Maline, Mindi Barth TITLE Academic Dishonesty Among College Students. Issues in Education. INSTITUTION Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. Office of Research. REPORT NO OR-93-3082 PUB DATE Aug 93 NOTE 17p. PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Cheating; Codes of Ethics; College Administration; College Faculty; College Students; Discipline Policy; Discipline Problems; *Educational Trends; *Higher Education; Plagiarism; School Policy; Student Attitudes IDENTIFIERS *Academic Misconduct ABSTRACT This monograph addresses some common questions about academic dishonesty in higher education and reviews issues affecting these institutions in light of existing research. The extent of academic dishonesty and the perception that it is increasing is examined. Three studies cited indicate that cheating is chronic and that 60 to 75 percent of students do cheat. A look at causes of cheating include ignorance of concepts such as collaboration, fair-use, and plagiarism, and also stress, and competition for jobs, scholarships, and admission to post-college programs. Research indicates that cheating depends significantly on situational characteristics of the classroom or institutions and that cheating is less likely to occur when there are threats of detection or sanctions. Faculty reaction research suggests that despite concerns, faculty rarely discuss rules on academic dishonesty in their classrooms. Findings also indicate that faculty often bypass university policy and handle cheating incidents on an individual basis. Research on how institutions respond to cheating incidents finds that key issues are: how academic dishonesty is defined, how cases are assessed, and how cheating is monitored.
    [Show full text]
  • CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY: the STATE of MIND CRIME-INTENT, PROVING INTENT, and ANTI-FEDERAL Intentt
    College of William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty and Deans 1976 Criminal Conspiracy: The tS ate of Mind Crime - Intent, Proving Intent, Anti-Federal Intent Paul Marcus William & Mary Law School, [email protected] Repository Citation Marcus, Paul, "Criminal Conspiracy: The tS ate of Mind Crime - Intent, Proving Intent, Anti-Federal Intent" (1976). Faculty Publications. 557. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/557 Copyright c 1976 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY: THE STATE OF MIND CRIME-INTENT, PROVING INTENT, AND ANTI-FEDERAL INTENTt Paul Marcus* I. INTRODUCTION The crime of conspiracy, unlike other substantive or inchoate crimes, deals almost exclusively with the state of mind of the defendant. Although a person may simply contemplate committing a crime without violating the law, the contemplation becomes unlawful if the same criminal thought is incorporated in an agreement. The state of mind element of conspiracy, however, is not concerned entirely with this agreement. As Dean Harno properly remarked 35 years ago, "The conspiracy consists not merely in the agreement of two or more but in their intention."1 That is, in their agreement the parties not only must understand that they are uniting to commit a crime, but they also must desire to complete that crime as the result of their combination. Criminal conspiracy, therefore, involves two distinct states of mind. The first state of mind prompts the conspirators to reach an agreement; the second relates to the crime that is the object of the agreement.
    [Show full text]
  • Criminal Liability of Corporations and Other Groups
    THE CRIMINAL LIABILITY OF CORPORATIONS AND OTHER GROUPS L. H. Leigh * I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The history of corporate criminal liability has been dealt with in detail elsewhere. 1 In this article, an outline only is presented. The development of corporate criminal liability represents tension and synthesis in legal concepts. It also represents a response to economic and social fact. It does not represent the application of a developed theoretical response to social problems. The general principle at common law was that corporations were not criminally liable. - That was the rule for several rea- sons. The most fundamental bar to liability lay in the inability of a corpor- ation to think or act for itself. The corporation was never quite regarded as acting under tutelage; 3 it enjoyed certain capacities-the right to sue and be sued in its corporate name, the right to hold and alienate property, and the right to pass by-laws regulating its internal government. 4 The will of its governing body could be imputed to it. 5 Yet, until the advent of vicar- ious liability there was no basis upon which positive acts could be imputed to corporations. Criminal liability could, however, be imposed for omissions causing nuisances. 6 Liability for misfeasance was a later development, com- ing under the head of vicarious liability. This provided both a basis for liability and, in the English cases (but not so evidently in the Canadian and American), a limitation thereof. For the historic view was, and is, that there shall be no vicarious liability for serious criminal offences.
    [Show full text]
  • Academic Integrity Policy
    ACADEMIC INTEGRITY POLICY The mission of the district, adopted June 2003, is to maximize the learning of all students. As a community of learners committed to excellence, we promote lifelong learning, personal integrity, social responsibility and good physical and mental health. Our graduates will be prepared to make meaningful, positive contributions to our world. The Board of Trustees believes that a major purpose of education is to instill honesty, integrity, pride in oneself, and the highest values of ethical behavior. The schools of the district are expected to create an environment in which honesty and ethical behavior are the expected norms. Cheating in any form is contrary to these values, and will not be tolerated. Appropriate consequences will be given to any student found cheating. The Board supports efforts to accomplish the district mission statement goals focused on responsibility, honesty, and integrity. The staff will develop and administer regulations to carry out this academic integrity policy. The regulations will specify responsibilities of students, families, teachers, and other school staff in support of academic integrity, and consequences for not complying. Written procedures, regulations, and consequences will be disseminated in various school publications, reinforced in classes, and implemented consistently and fairly. Everyone will be held accountable for the highest standard of academic integrity. We believe that the primary goals of any educational institution must be to facilitate learning, to enhance the learning environment and to promote the pursuit of intellectual excellence. In addition, public schools must teach and promote the values of our society and provide an environment conducive to ethical behavior.
    [Show full text]