(389) An Unsigned Letter
Plus, Demo Day.
Issue 389
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As you likely know, the primary writer and publisher of The Cheat Sheet is on summer break until August 12 or 14. Until then, readers and others are invited to submit articles, commentary, press information, product updates — anything related to academic integrity. Contributions can be submitted to Derek (at) NovemberGroup (dot) net
For this article, the author asked to be anonymous. Below is what they wrote, unedited.
An Anonymous Letter
The anonymous author has taught for over 25 years at multiple higher education institutions across the United States, both community college and four-year universities, as well as in person and online. They have published research and presented at international conferences on this topic. Due to concerns laid out in the article, they are exchanging the glory of a resume hit for a published article for the opportunity to present their honest thoughts.
Dear Derek,
I understand your need to take a break from talking about academic integrity issues. I feel your pain. I teach in higher education and have for a long time, both online and in person, at community colleges and four-year universities. I am what is known as a professional adjunct, teaching across multiple institutions to cobble together a full-time workload. Talking about students cheating, faculty ignoring it, faculty overwhelmed by artificial intelligence submissions, employer organizations who do nothing about it………. well, it’s exhausting. You are right. It’s demeaning that our students may be lying to us, it’s distracting, it’s frustrating, it’s time consuming, it is also nothing new. Students have been cheating for a long time.
Unfortunately, I am a teacher in higher education who loves my academic subject and the students who I know are trying……but that part of the job gets squashed due to time spent questioning originality and filing student conduct violation reports. Could I just go blindly forward assuming all my students are upstanding citizens who would never, ever possibly cheat in my class? Of course, but we all know that is not the case. You would be surprised, amazed, shocked, and sickened to learn that even before artificial intelligence came on the scene, “more than 60 percent of university students freely admit to cheating in some form” (ICAI, 2025). Now with AI here? Ugh, why do we even try? Derek, put your feet up a minute, it is a long road ahead indeed.
I will start with a short explanation of why I am writing this anonymously. I want to keep my job. Frankly, I am a bit afraid of my students too. I do not want to be threatened by anyone as has happened in the past. I do not want long expletive laden emails from students about how I am a terrible teacher (and person) because I forwarded their submission to the student conduct office for review. I have been called terrible things and told I obviously hate white people, hate black people, hate Christians, hate Catholics, hate women, hate men, you name it---because the person who submitted dishonest work did not like getting caught.
But what about being supported by my higher education employer institution, you may ask? Well, sometimes they are very supportive. But, it depends on the situation and the school…….other times, not so much. Sometimes faculty are told “use your best judgement, you are in charge of your class,” which is not helpful for me or the student. If I am reaching out to the institution’s resources for guidance, I clearly am unsure how to proceed for the specific instance. When the student is threatening to ‘lawyer up’ and my employer says to just do what I think is right………what would you do? So, yes, I am writing this anonymously because I feel the world needs to hear it straight from a teacher who has done quite a bit of original research on the topic. I have networked with, surveyed, and heard from faculty nationwide and they feel the same as me. So here it goes.
I am with Derek that dealing with academic integrity issues are important, yet taxing. I sincerely want to support all of my students to be their best academic selves, but a seemingly increasing number are not doing entirely original work. This is considered cheating in most academic venues. I am not writing just to complain though, I want those who are not familiar with academic integrity discussions to know that faculty are (hopefully) doing the best we can. This is especially true for the adjuncts who likely work at multiple institutions with a wide variety of policies and support structures. Higher education faculty are struggling with how to adequately balance all of their expected roles in their classrooms; writing and grading assessments, researching curriculum, attending committee meetings, executing taskings from committee meetings, and so on, but now we contend with the added concern of wondering if our online students are bots or real people.
Do you wonder if the people you work with are real people or computer bots? No? I do. Do you have concerns your colleagues (in my case, my students) are submitting all of your original work (such as assignment and discussion prompts) into a website which other students will use to cheat from next term? I do. And if you are a student reading this for tips on how to cheat, please at least change the student name on the cover page before you turn it into my class next term, that level of laziness is embarrassing.
Are higher education faculty frustrated? Yes. Do we need help? Yes. Do schools who say “we know you need help, that you are drowning in crap submissions we all know are not original student work, but those artificial intelligence and originality checkers are not accurate or fair to students” helpful or supportive? No.
At no time ever have I viewed an originality report by that large originality checker company and automatically penalized a student based on the matching percentage. Or, for that matter, just submitted it to the student conduct person at my organization for them to sort out. I, like every faculty member I have spoken with, always review all originality reports if available, regardless of matching percentage. Issues such as patchwork plagiarism likely indicates the learner needs writing support, not punishment. Patchwork plagiarism is when a student stitches together sentences of their own writing with text (like definitions) word for word from the source. I am a teacher, I want to teach. I honestly want to help students be their best.
What happens though when there is no originality checker support network? I guess I have to assume all student work at that institution is original (please read quote in second paragraph).
Since I teach the same courses each term, I will sometimes read a student’s paper and it sounds familiar, yet has a low matching percentage on the originality report. I then review old files to ensure my memory is serving me correctly. Yes, students get upset when they have an originality score below 20% but are still suspected of cheating. My evidence is that I have seven copies of a nearly identical paper from previous terms. Student have merely changed a few words here and there to avoid detection. Sigh. This takes time to research and then fill out student conduct reports. I take the time, but not all faculty do. What do our employer institutions want us to do---focus on teaching students or cross checking for student originality? Both? I need more hours in a day and a raise.
It is endlessly frustrating, tiring, confusing, and overwhelming when…….
1. I repeatedly report a student to the conduct office for every submission in the course (there were 16) as directly matched to an online cheat for profit company, only to be contacted by the student conduct office nine months after the term ends asking how they can be of assistance. That ship has sailed, my friend.
2. Multiple students have taken a course three times, only to cheat on every single assignment each term. As they were never held accountable; they kept retaking the class and failing.
3. A student submitted non-original assignments to my course (of which I have multiple copies previously submitted by other students), escalates poor behavior in unpleasant emails upon receiving inquiry of originality, including cc’ing the university president, department chair, and others “they are personal friends with” who were apparently going to make my professional life miserable.
These are all real life examples from different institutions where I have worked. Other faculty have shared similar experiences with me. This is why I am writing anonymously. However, I feel these instances deserve the light of day to show how academic integrity issues can be sticky situations for faculty.
At the end of the day, research shows faculty overwhelmingly want students to be held accountable by the institution for their dishonest behavior. Higher education faculty, especially adjuncts, can only do so much in the classroom. We want struggling students to get guidance and support, yet we can only do so much in the classroom. We want the tools which efficiently alert us to possible non-original submissions, we will then take the time to further review the submission.
Higher education faculty are the first line of defense for evaluating students’ originality. We would like our employer institutions to help us be successful in our professions. We would like our employer institutions to help us help the students be successful.
Get some rest Derek! You are going to need it to continue to deal with the craziness of academic dishonesty in higher education. Academic integrity should only be a small portion of what higher education faculty contend with daily and yet, we are tired, frustrated, and spending a lot of time dealing with it.
The following event information and image were submitted and are shared here, unedited.
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