Although both the professor and both TAs proctoring the exam were convinced that the student cheated, and documented that fact, the administration did not support them, and no action was taken against the student. I have been told by faculty that the most we can expect to do is to ask a student to move if we suspect her of cheating. I have moved students on several occasions in an exam when their behaviour seemed to indicate that they were attempting to cheat.

I don't think even some faculty members feel comfortable handling this difficult situation. It also amounts to ruining a students school career, so it is very difficult to take this step.

Two students had copied their essay from the Internet. The faculty member lowered their grade on the assignment and gave them a stern warning. University policy would have been suspension or expulsion. The faculty member thought this would be too harsh. I don't know what to think. On one hand, it is rough for a student to get kicked out of school over one incident on a small assignment. On the other hand, this was possibly one time out of many where the student got caught, and if every instructor took this policy there would never be any severe punishment. I would like to see the departments take a slightly less aggressive policy on cheating -- something like a 2 or 3 strikes & you're out policy. That way, instructors would not feel so cruel reporting a single incident because one minor incident would not expel the student. At the same time, if the same student continues to cheat in other courses they would be punished.

Cheating on major assignments (30% of grade or more) deserves an F for the course. On three separate times, to different faculty, I have presented evidence that paper was a) copied from a previous year or b) same essay handed in two different TAs, the profs haven't failed the student. The options given included rewriting the paper or not including the mark of the paper and making the final worth more (instead of 30%, the final would be 60%).

I reported 3 proven cases of plagiarism by a certain student, and reported it to the dean, but she is still a student at SFU, and continues to plagiarize her assignments.

In the past I have informed faculty and the reaction seemed to be indifference. Now I just inform the faculty member that I will give the student a zero on the assignment and the faculty member is okay with that (although they didn’t initiate the consequence, I had to).

Plagiarism is a problem in student essays that is not adequately addresses in my department. The tendency is to stay the course and only punish those with a blatant disregard for academic honesty, and even then, to me the punishment does not adequately fit the crime. A complicating factor at SFU is the large Asian student population, who it has been said have a different cultural difference of plagiarism. I tended to treat all students as equals and did not consider any student more leniently than others, holding them all to the stated SFU standard. However, I think that this often clouds departments judgement of what to do on these matters. One step in the right direction this year was that our department adopted www.turnitin.com which we found is not perfect, but it is likely to bring more of these cases to light and provide profs with some of the prof that they require to pursue sanctions.

Compare written assignments for similarities between students

Use computer scripts to compare all assignments turned in.

Ensure assignments and exams from previous semesters are sufficiently unique to prevent copying from one semester to the next

I ask students I suspect to explain their answers orally.

Instruct students how to properly take notes to avoid inadvertent plagiarism.

Provide individualized assignments

Provide my students with 'specific' assignment guidelines

Read through all assignments in one shot. Patterns become immediately obvious

A supportive role in following university and faculty policy, rather than in bearing primary responsibility or a leadership role in investigating and/or pursuing dishonest students.

As markers, it is ultimately their responsibility to detect it and to act on those instances they find. Beyond that, it is important that they communicate with their students beforehand the importance of academic integrity, and that they act as positive role models.

Be more attentive to plagiarism while marking. Yeah, I know all TAs just want to get through the stack of papers ... but they need to do more cross-checking with other TAs to see who's handing in identical work.

Dissemination of policy information and detection of non-compliance (NOT enforcement): e.g., close supervision of students during invigilation(s) (mandatory invigilation training sessions?), comparing submitted assignments/tests, active collaboration/communication with course supervisor

I think it is the role of the instructor/faculty member to first mention academic integrity to the class. The role of the TA/TM should be to reiterate the policies, to supervise exams, and to report any possible incidents to the instructor/faculty member.

I think TAs/TMs have a responsibility to inform the instructor of the course of cheating and lack of integrity but do not have the responsibility of enforcing any disciplinary action.

In the particular course I TA, the role is completely mine. The instructor takes no responsibility for marking assignments in any way. Since it is an introductory course the assignments are taken directly from the textbook with little chance of duplication from earlier courses. I, however, have no objections to students working together to answer the questions. Perhaps this is a business attitude, where you do better work when you consult with peers.

It is NOT the TAs job to babysit undergrads. We are NOT paid made to go provide additional checks to make sure that papers[are not plagiarized]. We barely have enough time to mark papers and finals, under the assumption that there is no plagiarism. That said: I take pride in my work and do my best to root out those that cheat. I give ample warning in my tutorials that I do check references and I am a stickler for proper bibliographic referencing.

TAs and TMs are generally the people who will be seeing student's work first-hand and are more likely the ones to catch the cheating. I think it is important for TAs to make it very clear to their students that cheating will not be tolerated, and also outline what they consider as cheating.

TAs/TMs need to be give specific guidelines from their supervising instructors/departments about how cheating/plagiarism should be dealt with. Most of the TAs/TMs I know take academic integrity and the control of cheating very seriously, but they are frequently unsure of what to do when they suspect cheating or plagiarism. The role of TAs/TMs is to support SFU faculty. They are not paid enough (nor do they have enough time) to manage/promote/control academic integrity themselves.

TMs have to work in a system that is not efficient. In particular, the fact that there is no communication between Faculties regarding a suspected student's history of cheating or plagiarism allows (in my own opinion) many, many students to graduate from our university with a degree largely obtained through cheating. In the age of computers, it should be fairly easy for the faculty to punch in a student who has been caught cheating to see if it is a first offence or a repeat. I strongly believe we should use zero tolerance when it comes to cheating. Especially since many of the students in my course will go on to teach my children in the public school system.

We should lead first by example. Secondly, we need to foster more non-competitive learning practices and encourage our students to be excited about the material for its own sake, rather than for instrumental concerns. Failing that we need to watch them closely.

(1) Lack of confidence (2) Lack of requisite skills (e.g., ESL students plagiarizing in English writing intensive courses) (3) Laziness (4) Workload -- unreasonable course demands (5)for profit (6) Vagueness: policy ignorance, or not understanding how the policy is interpreted. e.g., in a course where student collaboration with respect to mastering course concepts is encouraged, and students are encouraged to talk about assignments, but where the assignments are still to be completed individually (where does one draw the line between getting help with an assignment, and wrongfully submitting someone else's answers?) (7) Peer pressure (8) Because they can

All students should have to successfully complete at least 1 English composition class before being allowed to register for 200 level courses.

Because there's rarely any repercussions

Fairness to the students who are honest. These students are forced to cheat in order to catch up with dishonest students. Dishonest students cheat because their values permit them to cheat.

Fear of low grades under the Bell curve regime.

Getting better grades!!! it's all about grades in this school. a lot of students don't even care what they really learn in the classes. i heard instructor(s) complained that upper years students don't know basic stuff they learned in the junior years.

It is a very competitive world. Also, students who are used to a more lax environment elsewhere may think that they can get away with cheating at university.

Laziness of a small proportion of the students. The students are not aware of the penalties for their behaviour, and have not been made aware of instances of students being penalized for academic dishonesty. The recent Economics course example is an exception, not the standard in the eyes of the students. The practice by student unions of various departments storing and distributing old exams gives the impression to the students that they have a right to access any exam they wish to see prior to studying for a course. Some faculty I have TA'd for do not feel that "upper levels" will support them when they attempt to penalize a student, so will not often follow up on clear cases of academic dishonesty.

My impression as both a TA and sessional instructor can be summed up as follows: There is an overall lack of respect for academia. With it, comes an attitude that they're there to endure four or five years and how they get through it matters not. A good deal of students are lazy--they don't want to take notes during a lecture, they want to study as little as possible, preferably memorization, and they want _everything_ on the web. Taking notes by hand is becoming a thing of the past. Certainly, this isn't all students, many are hard working and conscientious, but there needs to be a way to weed out those who are not. They are the ones most likely to cheat.

Pressure to achieve high academic standing. Not enough time to do good work because of parental pressure, the need to work to pay rising tuition fees and student loan costs. Lack of awareness of the seriousness of the offense.

Student's lack of awareness of the seriousness of the issue and not being properly informed about how to avoid academic dishonesty. I believe that the balance of power is in favour of students (and I have heard various reasons suggested for this - including that students pay fees and we need to attract more students to our courses) and faculty are not willing to follow up on many cases of cheating because the burden of proof is unrealistically demanding. This apathy from faculty in response to an unbalanced policy is what may allow academic dishonesty to take further root and blossom.

The majority of cheating observed in our department is in the 100 level and introductory courses. I think it happens primarily here because there are numerous students merely taking the course to fulfill credit hours and they do not have any real interest in the course or discipline.

They are lazy. There is the misconception that the easiest way to get good grades is by cheating. The best way to get consistently good grades is by learning the course material and in the end it takes less time to use this approach than to cheat. I don't think that a lot of students have understood the difference between getting good grades and understanding the material. Perhaps professors should stress this more and perhaps they could write exams that tested an understanding of concepts more than a regurgitation of facts. Another problem is leniency in marking. Students who have clearly missed key concepts can still pass an exam depending on how part marks are allocated. This should not happen.

Unfortunately, there are other forms of dishonesty not covered in your survey - several of which I've experienced as a female TA (e.g. harassment/intimidation by a male student re. grades; taking other students' papers and then returning them after having had the chance to read them before handing in own work). All the cases of academic dishonesty were written assignments received from students who were chronically late, and had not done readings for tutorials. Perhaps this suggests that the 'cheating' is a last-minute 'solution' for students who want to put together a 20 page paper overnight?