Saturday, May 30, 2009
The skinny on law school cheating
The National Law Journal reports that according to a 2006 study, 45% of law students admit to cheating at least once in the past year. And while, according to this source, the percentage of law students who cheat has remained fairly constant over the years (there are surveys going back as far as the 1950's), what has changed is how students define what it means to cheat.
[Santa Clara's] associate dean for academic affairs, said that law students today may be more tempted to cheat because of the availability of online information for papers and because of the increased use of take-home tests. The school's new policy enumerates different areas of cheating, including behavior during tests; plagiarism; unauthorized collaboration on written work; and submission of the same work for more than one course. It establishes a protocol for students and faculty to report the behavior.
. . . .
The most effective academic integrity policies include students in the disciplinary process; that helps make the code a part of a school's culture, said Gary Pavela, an attorney and former honors program teacher at the University of Maryland. In June, he will become the director of academic integrity at Syracuse University. Pavela said that schools increasingly are tailoring their policies to more specifically identify what defines dishonest conduct and to set out the consequences of cheating. Having faculty members refer often to academic honesty helps, he said. The combination of student and faculty involvement, Pavela said, creates a 'double impact.'
You can read the full story here as well as Above the Law's coverage here.
I am the scholarship dude.
(jbl)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwriting/2009/05/the-skinny-on-law-school-cheating.html