

Students urged to embrace integrity

by John Morris

Students at the University of Waterloo should work, study and play — and do it all with integrity for their own good and for the good of the institution.

That's the central message of an ambitious collaborative initiative — featuring banners, posters, magnets and videos — intended to forge a culture of integrity among students and other members of the community in all aspects of their lives on campus.

The ongoing program, launched last fall by Waterloo's Office of Academic Integrity in collaboration with a mix of academic support units and input from student leaders and faculty, seeks to raise awareness about what is expected of students in the wide-ranging area of integrity in the classroom, at work and in residence.

It tackles a troubling perception that some of today's students don't yet have a clear idea of the meaning of integrity, with its values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.

"It's important to emphasize that integrity is everyone’s business at Waterloo, not just students," says Bruce Mitchell, associate provost, resources. In addition to students, key participants in the initiative are faculty members, teaching assistants and staff.

"Our main job on the academic integrity front is to inform and educate the students so they understand our expectations," he says. "We cannot assume that every student arrives here with the same knowledge of the proper use of citations, paraphrasing and so on."

Mitchell, who heads the Office of Academic Integrity, says that integrity is not limited to academics alone, but includes every aspect of a student's university experience.

With the help of Creative Services, four posters have been produced, each with an accompanying video, to present students in typical settings in a campus community - academics, athletics, workplace and residence.

The videos can be viewed by the QR code or by following the URL on the poster.

As part of the program, first-year undergraduate students also receive fact sheets on academic integrity. They can learn about five commonly misunderstood offences: excessive collaboration; plagiarism; unauthorized use of previous term's assignments, tests and solutions; use of another student's previous assignment, test and solution; and theft of another student's intellectual property.

They can also take online academic integrity tutorials and verify the integrity of their essays by using citationmachine.net, a citation generator that helps them avoid plagiarism.

Professors are also expected to outline their expectations on proper conduct in the classroom, including whether students are permitted to engage in research projects with their classmates in this age of Facebook friends.

Together with colleague Faye Schultz of the academic integrity office, Mitchell consulted extensively with representatives from Athletics and Recreation, Federation of Students, Health Services, Housing and Residences, Student Success Office and Student Life Office.

"Our goal was to develop a consistent message for academic integrity with a common tag line which could be promoted across the campus," Mitchell says. "We needed a broad appeal in all areas of campus life to reach the students."

The campaign's chief goal is to raise awareness of how the five values of integrity - honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility - should define the community at Waterloo.

As well, it aims to encourage campus units to develop complementary messages that reinforce the importance of integrity in all aspects of life at Waterloo.

For example, Athletics and Recreation unveiled a Student Athlete Mission Statement and Values poster, which links to one of the four posters about integrity at Waterloo. Other areas, such as co-op education, housing and the library, are expected to offer similar integrity-related posters.

The Office of Academic Integrity offers tools on how best to achieve academic excellence.

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