New Academic Integrity Research from Canada (October, 2021)

October 15, 2021

I think this might be a record for the number of academic integrity research outputs in Canada across different venues, all published in a single week: two articles, each published in a different journal, as well as two conference presentations. It’s one thing to have a series of research outputs from a single source, such as one issue of a journal or a set of conference proceedings, but what’s worth celebrating here is that these are from multiple, peer-reviewed sources.

Hu & Zhang (2021) and Liang et al. (2021) have papers in the proceedings from Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students in Open and/or Online Learning Environments: A Research Symposium hosted by the University of Windsor in June:

Hu, J., & Zhang, C. (2021). ESL student plagiarism prevention challenges and institutional interventions. Paper presented at the Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students in Open and/or Online Learning Environments: A Research Symposium (Online), University of Windsor, ON. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=itos21

Liang, A., Maddison, T., & England, S. (2021). Proactive not punitive: Strategies to prevent plagiarism and promote international student success. Paper presented at the Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students in Open and/or Online Learning Environments: A Research Symposium (Online), University of Windsor, ON. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=itos21

Josh Seeland and colleagues from Manitoba published this Classroom Note in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology (Taylor & Francis):

Seeland, J., Cliplef, L., Munn, C., & Dedrick, C. (2021). Mathematics and academic integrity: institutional support at a Canadian college. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2021.1981472

And last but not least, the latest article from the Contract Cheating in Canada: National Policy Analysis project that I’m leading has been published in the Canadian Journal for Educational Administration and Policy. This paper reports on our policy analysis of Ontario Universities.

Miron, J. B., McKenzie, A., Eaton, S. E., Stoesz, B. M., Thacker, E., Devereaux, L., . . . Rowbotham, K. (2021). Academic integrity policy analysis of publicly-funded universities in Ontario, Canada: A focus on contract cheating. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 197, 62-75. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/72082

In 2018 when I co-published with Rachael Edino a literature review about existing research from Canada on academic integrity, we reported that we’d found 56 sources published over 25 years. I am so proud to see how far we have come as a Canadian community to build our research and practice expertise and mobilize that knowledge via high quality peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

In case you’re wondering if academic integrity is a field of research, it absolutely is, with high quality scholarly outputs coming out every month, from scholars across the world. Of course, I highlight outputs from my compatriots because I am happy for them and proud of their work, and we are part of a global community of scholars, educators, and professionals across the world doing this work. (Hey, colleagues in Australia and the UK, are you reading this? We are catching up to you!)

Check out these recent publications and see what we’ve been doing in Canada. It’s pretty awesome.

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This blog has had over 2 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada.

Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary or anyone else.


Webinar: Contract Cheating in Canada: Exploring Legislative Options

October 4, 2021

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: URGENT AND EMERGING TOPICSJoin us for an introductory discussion about the commercial contract cheating industry (e.g., term paper mills, homework completion services, and paid imposters who take exams on behalf of students). One question people often ask is, “Why aren’t these services illegal?” The short answer is: Academic cheating services are not currently illegal in Canada, but they are in other countries. In this session we’ll provide an overview of which countries have successfully enacted legislation against predatory industry that profits from academic misconduct. We will provide an overview of the legal structures in Canada that might facilitate or present barriers to such legislation being enacted in this country. We do not promise answers or solutions to the complex issue of contract cheating, but instead provide an evidence-base for deeper discussion.

The intended audience for this session is primarily for those in Canada interested in contract cheating from the Canadian legal context. Participants from other regions are also welcome.

By the end of this session engaged participants will be able to: 

  • Describe what contract cheating is
  • Understand how legislation against contract cheating has been enacted in other countries
  • Discover legal aspects of contract cheating in Canada and beyond

Facilitators: Alicia Adlington &  Sarah Elaine Eaton, University of Calgary
Date: Friday, October 29, 2021
Time: 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. (Note: This is Mountain Time. Please convert to your local time zone)
Location: Online via Zoom

Please note: Registration will close on Wednesday, October 27, 2021, at 11:59 p.m. (MT) and a Zoom link for the webinar will be sent the morning of the workshop.

Register now

For more information, visit the website: https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/series-and-events/academic-integrity-urgent-emerging-topics

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This blog has had over 2 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada.

Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary or anyone else.


Research update: Highlights from some current projects

February 9, 2021

It seems I have a lot of academic Integrity research projects on the go these days, so I thought I’d do a post about some of this exciting work and the amazing people I’ve been collaborating with.

Academic Integrity and Mental Well-Being

As part of my Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity role, I wanted to connect some of my research to the University of Calgary’s Campus Mental Health Strategy.

I’ve been working on with two terrific graduate students, Helen Pethrick and Kristal Turner on a new project, Academic Integrity and Mental Well-Being.

So far, we have one publication from this project. Exploring academic integrity and mental health during COVID-19: Rapid review was published in the Journal of Contemporary Education Theory & Research in December 2020.

Our second paper is under peer review, so stay tuned for details on that later.

Academic Integrity: Faculty Development Needs for Canadian Higher Education

This is the inaugural project associated with the D2L Innovation Guild. This project is the first of its kind in Canada. There has never before been a multi-institutional project, with representation from across multiple provinces, that has also partnered with industry in pursuit of a common unified goal with regards to academic integrity.

This collaborative, multi-institutional project included researchers from four Canadian provinces:

  • Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, Principal Investigator, University of Calgary
  • Katherine (Katie) Crossman, PhD, Co-Investigator and Study Coordinator, University of Calgary
  • Brenda M. Stoesz, PhD, Co-Investigator, University of Manitoba
  • Kim Garwood, PhD, Co-Investigator, University of Guelph
  • Amanda McKenzie, MA, Co-Investigator, University of Waterloo

We have publicly registered our project on the Open Science Framework. You can check out details about our project here.

You can check out our project brief, which is available as an open access report (Crossman et al., 2019). This project is now complete and we submitted our final reports to the D2L Innovation Guild Board on February 8, 2021.

Contract Cheating in Canada: National Policy Analysis

 This is an exciting project that I began developing in 2018. I wanted to create opportunities for Canadian researchers to do scholarly inquiry into contract cheating. I received mentorship from Dr. Tracey Bretag in the early stages of this project. She had led a team in Australia to conduct academic integrity policy research there. She coached me on how to conduct a similar project in Canada. As a result, I launched Contract Cheating in Canada: National Policy Analysis.

The specific objectives of this project are to:

  • Identify existing components of academic integrity policies and procedures related to contract cheating;
  • Identify gaps in existing academic integrity policies and procedures related to contract cheating;
  • Evaluate the policies and procedures against existing standards for post-secondary education policy (i.e., Australian Government: Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), 2017; Higher Education Academy [HEA], 2011) with a focus on supports that have been developed for students and other campus stakeholders (Bretag et al., 2011);
  • Compare supports available for undergraduate students and graduate students; and
  • Develop and communicate recommendations for policy reform.

This national project is sub-divided according to regions of Canada and types of post-secondary institutions (e.g., colleges and universities). Different teams have been involved with each of the smaller sub-projects, with individuals from a particular region studying the policies from their own regions.

We’ve already had some great publications out of this project, the most recent of which was published in Educational Policy.

Degrees of Deceit: A Study of Fake Degrees, Diploma Fraud and Counterfeit Credentials

I am working with Jamie Carmichael at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, on a project to better understand fake degrees and fraudulent credentials in Canadian higher education.

Check out our webinar recording about this work. Some very cool resources we have already produced out of this work include:

A slide deck from our webinar session.

Counterfeit Credentials: Top 13 Recommendations for Higher Education Professionals (Infographic)

Scholarships without Scruples (Infographic)

We are also working on an edited book on this topic. More details on that will be coming soon…

These aren’t all the projects I have on the go, just a few I wanted to highlight here. Feel free to get in touch about any of these projects. You know where to find me!

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This blog has had over 2 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada.

Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary or anyone else.


New article: Understanding the academic integrity policies of publicly funded universities in western Canada

December 23, 2020

Educational PolicyThe latest article in our project, Contract Cheating in Canada: National Policy Analysis has just been published!

Stoesz, B., & Eaton, S. E. (2020). Understanding the academic integrity policies of publicly funded universities in western Canada. Educational Policy. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904820983032

Abstract

We examined 45 academic integrity policy documents from 24 publicly-funded universities in Canada’s four western provinces using a qualitative research design. We extracted data related to 5 core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy (i.e., access, detail, responsibility, approach, support). Most documents pointed to punitive approaches for academic misconduct and were based on the notion that academic misconduct results from a lack of morals. One university used the term “contract cheating,” although nearly all categorized the outsourcing of academic work as plagiarism. Details about educational resources and supports to increase student and staff understanding of academic integrity and prevention of academic misconduct were sparse. This study signals the continuing punitive nature of academic integrity policies in western Canadian universities, the reluctance to address contract cheating directly, and the need to revise policies with deeper consideration of educative approaches to academic integrity that support students and academic staff.

Keywords: academic integrity, Canada, contract cheating, educational supports, higher education, policy

This is an open access article and is free to read and download.

For more information about this article, or the national project, please contact me directly.

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This blog has had over 2 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary.


Workshop: Exploring Racism and Academic Integrity through a Circle Process

October 16, 2020

ATESL 2020I’m excited to partner with colleagues from Norquest College and the Alberta Council on Academic Integrity to present this workshop at the Alberta Teachers’ of English as a Second Language (ATESL) 2020 E- Conference: Seeds of Possibility: Curiosity, Drive, and Innovation.

Workshop Description

In this session participants will explore and experience the Circle of Courage and circle process by engaging in a dialogue on anti-racism and racism related to academic misconduct.

The Circle of Courage (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2005) is a model of resilience and positive development based on Indigenous values of Belonging, Mastery, Independence and Generosity. Applied together with a circle process, this way of approaching the relational space in classrooms helps create the conditions for students and instructors to engage more authentically and openly in difficult complex topics. As a holistic approach to discussion this a way to spur conversation about the dynamic faced by English as additional language learners.

Keywords: Academic integrity; Restorative Justice; Restorative Practices; Circle Process; Racism

Reference:

Brendtro, L., Brokenleg, M., & Bockern, V. (2005). The circle of courage and positive psychology. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 14(3). 130-136.

Workshop Materials

You can download our workshop materials for free from here: http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112689

Presenter bios

Sheryl Boisvert, B.Ed, CPA, CGA is currently a full-time instructor at NorQuest College. Though she has performed a variety of roles since 2001, Sheryl has found being an instructor to be the most fulfilling.  She has always believed that students gain a better understanding of the material they learn when they can go beyond textbook theory and put concepts into practice.

Nazanin Teymouri, MBA, is as an instructor at NorQuest College in the Faculty of Business, Environment, and Technology. Currently her time at the college is split between teaching and co-leading research initiatives on academic integrity. With a background in communication and business, her focus is on analysis, cultural understanding, and collaboration aimed at bettering the learning environment.

Jamie Ahksistowaki Medicine Crane is Blackfoot from Kainai and Piikani, an activist, advocate, educator, and multi-disciplinary artist. Shes very passionate in education and is currently working with NorQuest College as a curriculum developer- in regards to Indigenous education, history and perspectives, building faculty capacity, supporting curriculum development and Indigenization strategy.

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. She is a long-standing member of ATESL. Her research focuses on academic integrity.

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This blog has had over 2 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, and the Educational Leader in Residence, Academic Integrity, University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of Calgary.