Academic Integrity
In recent weeks, a post to UMBCUnderground has received unparalleled amounts of attention through myUMBC. The conversation caught the eye of SGA’s Office of Academic Affairs. Realizing the implications of the situation, OAA has begun to take the appropriate steps to address it.
For those who are not aware the issue stemmed from the use of Turnitin.com by a professor, as well as her methods of judging academic integrity. Two main questions have been raised:
1) Is her process, including student submission to the website Turnitin.com, legal?
2) Are her techniques within the boundaries of the university?
OAA has been working to find answers to both questions.
In regards to Turnitin.com, a meeting was held with Provost Elliot Hirshman, David Gleason (General Counsel, providing legal insight), and Oliver Muellerklein (the student who wrote the UU article) to review the legality of the website. Questions have been raised about its legitimacy after a number of Ivy League schools have excluded it from their practices due to conflicts of copyright infringement and questions about its accuracy. However, the site does fall within the laws of fair use for education, and the issue of its legality is one that has been looked at already and passed out of the courts.
Regarding its accuracy and the way it is applied at this university, there are still discussions happening on this front, and more information on this will be coming in the future.
Research has also begun on the professor’s practices and their outcomes for students who have taken her course. In meeting with the student members of the Academic Conduct Committee (of which the professor is a member, but not head), Muellerklein, and Megan Shook (president of BioCOM) and reviewing the process by which cases are brought to the committee, including a broad overview of previous cases, there has been no sign of a student being accused of plagiarism who was not actually guilty. The next question, then, is this: Why is there such a big difference between the reports on myUMBC and UU, which seem to imply that there is a large group of students that have been unjustly penalized, and the statements from the ACC, saying that most of the students that appeal from this professor’s class are actually guilty of academic misconduct?
A meeting with the professor herself was scheduled.
Though it has become clear that the professor is working within the boundaries of UMBC’s academic misconduct procedures, OAA is still working to further address the issue. Anyone interested in assisting in this development should contact umbcoaa@gmail.com.
From the student who wrote the original article:
“The issues that I have been pushing with the article and my meetings with various leaders, both faculty and student, have been about the justification of using Turnitin.com and faculty conduct towards students. I, in no way, believe it is valid, justified nor right to try to get a particular professor terminated. Nor do I support any petition or online group that is trying to do that. That is not my agenda. That will not solve this complex problem. With all due respect to the all the students who are supporting such petitions and groups, it is actually hurting this cause. I am working with the administration to have real changes brought to UMBC, not to have someone’s life interfered with.”
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