Academic integrity:
As the new calendar year approaches, I can't help but anticipate the coming spring semester -- and to hold out the hope that this one will be the semester in which none of my students commits plagiarism. Otherwise, I'm facing...
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Posted on December 29, 2007 11:47 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In the 20/27 December 2007 issue of Nature, there's a fascinating commentary by Cambridge University neuroscientists Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir. Entitled "Professor's little helper," this commentary explores, among other things, how "cognitive-enhancing drugs" are starting to find their way...
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Posted on December 19, 2007 1:02 PM • 35 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If you're "writing" a philosophy paper and you're going to plagiarize, why would you plagiarize a sub-optimal source like Wikipedia? Why wouldn't you at least rip off a top-notch source like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? It seems to me...
Posted on December 5, 2007 6:05 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
... is to get all the way through the 16 weeks without a single incident of plagiarism turned in as "student work". Alas, it appears this will not be the semester in which my fantasy becomes a reality. Dammit....
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Posted on November 7, 2007 3:43 PM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm pretty sure the National Collegiate Athletic Association doesn't want college athletes -- or the athletics programs supporting them -- to cheat their way through college. However, this article at Inside Higher Ed raises the question of whether some kind...
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Posted on October 3, 2007 2:24 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Somehow, the Florida State University Office of Athletic Academic Support Services had in its employ a "Learning Specialist" who seemed to think it was part of his or her job to help a bunch of student athletes cheat. As reported...
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Posted on September 27, 2007 5:23 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The news today from Inside Higher Ed is that the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to fire Ward Churchill. You may recall that in May 2006, a faculty panel at the university found that the tenured ethnic studies...
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Posted on July 25, 2007 2:08 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Following up on my query about what it would take for a Young Earth Creationist "to write a doctoral dissertation in geosciences that is both 'impeccable' in the scientific case it presents and intellectually honest," I'm going to say something...
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Posted on February 22, 2007 5:56 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
By now, you may have heard (via Pharyngula, or Sandwalk, or the New York Times) about Marcus Ross, who was recently granted a Ph.D. in geosciences by the University of Rhode Island. To earn that degree, he wrote a dissertation...
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Posted on February 21, 2007 1:11 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Uncle Fishy and RMD pointed me to this story in the New York Times about a last-minute extra assignment (due today) for students enrolled in "Critical Issues in Journalism" at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Not an extra...
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Posted on December 7, 2006 9:13 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
From time to time I get emails asking for advice dealing with situations that just don't feel right. Recently, I've been asked about the following sort of situation: You're an undergraduate who has landed an internship in a lab that...
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Posted on August 13, 2006 12:51 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Not quite a year ago, I wrote a pair of posts about allegations of widespread plagiarism in the engineering college at Ohio University. The allegations were brought by Thomas Matrka, who, while a student in the masters program in mechanical...
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Posted on July 19, 2006 1:05 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm not going to do this to death, partly because others will and partly because Churchill isn't a scientist. But, given that I'm working the ethics beat at ScienceBlogs, I ought to give you the ethical crib-sheet: Plagiarism is bad....
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Posted on June 28, 2006 11:56 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Occasionally I get email asking for advice in matters around responsible conduct of research. Some readers have related horror stories of research supervisors who grabbed their ideas, protocols, and plans for future experiments, either to give them to another student...
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Posted on June 12, 2006 5:49 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Some of you with lives tied to the academic calendar have been done for awhile. Others may still be heading for the finish line. In either case, I'm willing to bet some of you have seen some cheating. The term...
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Posted on May 18, 2006 10:00 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today I had my first (non-virtual) class meetings of the spring semester. There's nothing like having every available seat filled and then having folks stream in to sit on the floor to make an academic feel popular. (Of course, in...
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Posted on January 26, 2006 11:16 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
