Misconduct and Marquette

Plus, more great reporting from The Philippines. Plus, Chegg, cheating in South Africa.

Issue 81

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Cheating and Marquette University

A week or so ago, Michael R. Lovell, President at Marquette University wrote an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed in which he extolled the virtues of academic integrity and explained how his school “prioritizes” it.

I am obviously not sure who convinced President Lovell to do this, but he shouldn’t have. It’s embarrassing.

After going on about how ethics are important and integrity is key to the future and how seriously Marquette takes this issue, Lovell highlights his school’s review process, its director and things they do to promote integrity. These include,

Part of our New Student Convocation programming involves reciting Marquette’s Honor Pledge, at which point students commit themselves to the highest standard of ethical and academic practice, which is upheld throughout their tenure with us.

And,

Marquette’s new students are also required to complete our Academic Integrity Tutorial, an online training program for new students at all levels. Students complete the training program before they can register for classes.

Cool. As you probably know, Honor Pledges are fine. Online tutorials are fine too. They do no harm. But there’s little evidence they do much by themselves to deter cheating.

Moreover, no school deserves ribbons or accolades for having pledges and codes - they are really the bare minimum effort at this point. It’s a check-the-box requirement and students know it.

And based on what’s going on at Marquette specifically, Marquette students know it.

We know this because - to their credit - Marquette publishes reports on academic misconduct. Again, that’s good. Every school should be public about what’s happening and it’s shameful that most are not.

But the data and narratives from Marquette don’t match their President’s lofty, self-congratulatory words.

For example, in 2018-19, Marquette had 119 cases of reported academic integrity violations. By 2019-20 though, dealing with the shift to remote learning brought on by the pandemic, Marquette’s report says:

The key takeaway is: double. Double the cases and double the proportion of cheating. The fall term saw 58 cases submitted, while the spring term—the pandemic term—saw 122 cases.

In 2020-21, the number of cases at Marquette looks to have been about 160 - also significantly above the 2018-19 baseline.

In dealing with a sizeable uptick in cheating during the pandemic and remote learning, Marquette is by no means alone. Granted, few schools have had the nerve to brag about their commitment to academic integrity while their cases doubled, but Marquette is not unique otherwise.

What stands out from Marquette’s policies though, is not just the increased cheating. It’s that over the past several years, between 60% and 75% of cases of alleged academic misconduct at Marquette have been resolved through what it calls an “expedited review offer.” Here’s what that is:

the [reviewing academic integrity] Council makes an offer to the student to bring their case to a swift conclusion with a genuine but not severe class sanction (e.g., receiving a zero for an assignment where misconduct occurred, rather than, say, the loss of an entire letter grade for the course).

And I want to be entirely, categorically clear - receiving a zero on an assignment in which a student cheated is no penalty.

Assuming the student would not have completed the assignment, or failed the test anyway, receiving a failing grade means there’s no risk in trying to cheat. Even if you get caught, which is unlikely, the Marquette process will - as much as 75% of the time - just assign the failing grade you would have received anyway. That’s the very definition of all reward, no risk.

I mean my goodness.

And since we’re doing this, in 2020-21 about 38% of Marquette students referred for misconduct had their cases “dismissed.” In the previous two years, the dismissal rate was 19%. Noting the increase, the 20-21 Marquette report said:

This year’s increased dismissal rate reflects the fact that the Council’s Investigative Officers (IOs) understood that certainties were few during the pandemic, and that erring on the side of caution was prudent.

You’re kidding, right?

They’re using the famous and highly effective “Gee whiz, times are tough all ‘round kid, so scram” approach to integrity. I do wonder if they teach that in their ethics classes.

Taken together, last year Marquette processed 60% of misconduct cases with “expedited review” and simply dismissed another 38% with the “certainties were few” clause. That’s 98%.

In all three years - 2018 to 2021 - Marquette’s reports say:

No students were suspended or expelled for Academic Integrity reasons this Academic Year.

So I ask - in all seriousness - what exactly is the consequence for cheating at Marquette?

You really think students don’t know that no one ever gets in serious trouble for cheating? When 98% of your cases end in a zero or literally no consequence at all, what’s the point?

And, again, I understand that many, even most, schools have incredibly lax and permissive policies and practices related to actually caring about cheating - doing anything about it. But not all schools in that posture send their President out to brag about how well they’re doing. That’s a new one.

Cheating, Chegg and the “New Normal” in South Africa

Last month, a news outlet in South Africa ran a good news piece on the state of cheating there.

It has the familiar makers - online exams have driven a rise in cheating. They call online cheating “the new normal.”

Specifically, Stephen Marquard, of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town, said,

Homework sites such as chegg.com are a particular concern

The article continues:

Chegg, which sells itself as a one-stop shop for students who need academic help, offers a range of services from homework help to exam preparation and answers from “experts”, all of which professors and lecturers have flagged as encouraging academic dishonesty. 

Like I said, pretty familiar.

The article contains examples of direct message marketing from cheating providers including one that offered to send solutions to exam questions via a message service during the exam. The cheating provider offered instructions on how to bypass remote exam proctors. Students said such ads were common and the school the students attended, declined to address the issue, the paper said.

Again, pretty familiar.

What is new is that some schools in South Africa are apparently using a smart phone app called The Owl to deter and detect cheating - an alternative to remote, on camera proctoring. It has some interesting features. But:

some students say there are ways to cheat despite the app. 

One university student told the paper,

yes, it is very easy to cheat, very easy.

Part II: Interviews with Cheating Providers and Resellers in The Philippines

In the second part to their series (see Issue 79), a paper in The Philippines takes a very long, very solid look at cheating providers and those who earn commissions by recruiting students and referring them to cheaters.

It’s long. But it’s absolutely worth reading.

Here are just two highlights.

Again, we see those who sell academic fraud openly doing it on Facebook:

Chan added that the bulk of his clients are from Facebook, while a few others are from Twitter and Telegram. These are mostly junior, senior high school, and college students.

“On Facebook, I use my page and my own personal account to promote my services to students. I also used my real name on Twitter and Telegram. Having a dummy account for this doesn’t help for me because clients will trust you less,” he said.

And, again we see the rationalization of cheating, this time from the providers. Chan, the cheating seller quoted above, also said,

I believe that doing this job is not contributing to academic dishonesty because, to be honest, most teachers, parents, and elders don't know the struggle of the students who study in this time of crisis in online classes. They don't know how hard it is to learn in such a repetitive and dull environment that can drain the student's energy without realizing it.

It’s not cheating because “teachers don’t know the struggle” and “they don’t know how hard it is.” Yup, it’s their fault. If only they knew.

Anyway, it’s a good read about a side of cheating we don’t see very often.

Notes - In the last “The Cheat Sheet” the audio of me reading was - I heard - awful. If you missed it or did not try to listen, consider yourself lucky on multiple fronts. But, unfortunately for you, I have better equipment now and the quality should improve, starting now.

Also, what do you want for free? I mean, really.

Further, there won’t be an Issue this Thursday as I’ll be plodding through 2021’s Issues picking out the best and worst of the year. If you have nominees or ideas for people, events or things that stood out in academic integrity in 2021, please send them my way. And thank you to those of you have already.

And finally, thank you for sharing “The Cheat Sheet” with friends, colleagues and - even better - your enemies.