Dear readers,

Welcome to the new ENAI newsletter! The major topic of this issue is the current pandemic and academic integrity, which is rather convenient as we like to collect contributions which are the most up-to-date.
Before you start reading, let us introduce the new ENAI Board and Auditing Group. From 22nd May,  those elected at the Annual General Meeting in April 2020 take up their responsibilities. The ENAI Board consists of: Tomáš Foltýnek (president), Sonja Bjelobaba (vice-president), Salim Razı, Inga Gaizauskaite and Július Kravjar;  the Auditing Group is: Shiva Sivasubramaniam (head), Zeenath Reza Khan and Milan Ojsteršek.
All the best to these people for the next three years!

In this issue:

• Can Two Students Submit Their Theses with Identical Pieces of Text?
• First Meeting of ENAI WG Panel
• A Call for Academic Collaborations or Contributions
• "Where is the Borderline of Plagiarism?" Hits the Record in the Number of Participants!
• Call for Papers: Integrity in an Emergency
• Webinar Leading with Integrity: sustaining ethical leadership & governance in HE
• New Guidance to Help Tackle The Use of Essay Mills
• How a Retracted Research Paper Contaminated Global Coronavirus Research
• Math Teacher Posted False Solution Online to Catch Students in Violation of Academic Integrity

By Tamara Kocurová

By the end of the Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond 2020 conference, ENAI had 14 working groups! To coordinate their activities, the working group leaders met together with the new ENAI Board. This informal body will meet regularly and will be known as the ENAI WG Panel.
The first WG Panel meeting took place on 8th June 8. The Board members introduced their strategy for the next three years as well as the policy on sponsorship. The overall strategy is tightly related to the promotional strategy. Inga Gaižauskaitė, who kindly agreed to lead the Promotion and public relations working group, introduced her ideas. After that, all working groups described their current activities and plans for the future. For example, the Ethical advisory group plans to research how COVID19 affected academic integrity – see their article in this newsletter.
The working group for Glossary & Guidelines plans to release a new update of the Glossary every year. If you have a proposal for a change to the Glossary or would like to add a new term, please contact the head of the group Marco Cosentino (marco.cosentino@uninsubria.it).
The last topic of the meeting was the Global Ethics Day (October 21st 2020).  The plan is to organize a European Academic Integrity Week 19th -23rd October with a series of four webinars by ENAI members which will be open to everyone. The webinars take place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will be reserved for on-campus activities.

For more information about the working groups please look at this webpage. Don't forget that all ENAI working groups are open to anyone! If you are interested in becoming part of any group, please contact the head of the group or send an email to info@academicintegrity.eu.

 

By Shiva Sivasubramaniam and Zeenath Kahn

This is an open call to research and collaborate on the above topic from the ENAI Ethical Advisory Group for interested members of ENAI.

The traditional ways of university education are currently being challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many in the HE sector were unprepared and underestimated impact on higher education. It was sudden for some in the academic community, some who did not have time to think about the policy changes that needed to be implemented. Hence some universities were forced to execute reactive measures to ensure continuity of learning, teaching and assessments.
Following discussions with colleagues from universities across the boundaries, some key areas of interest have been identified that summarise possible reactive “actions” that were taken by some universities to ensure the “effective delivery of the courses, with minimal or no detriments to students”,  detailed below with a short narrative commentary on their practical applications and possible areas of ethical dilemmas that may be raised.
It is crucial that readers understand the discussions put forward are based on academic interactions/discussions involving authors, for the purpose of initiating dialogue and interest of possible colleagues and researchers across universities worldwide to work on a collaborative study. No data or study has thus far been carried out to statistically verify the claims and opinions put forward below. The ENAI Ethical Advisory Committee would like to understand the actions implemented by different institutions and their effectiveness within the scope of ethical perceptions, practices and expectations.

Teaching Online
Going online has had mixed receptions. Whilst it seemed to be successful in maintaining effective delivery of lectures, seminars and workshops in theoretical subjects, it proved to be very challenging during delivery of subject areas where the practical skills applications are needed. Yet some academics claimed that online teaching improved attendance, and enhanced student interactions as it provided anonymity. In particular, when thinking in terms of equal education with accessibility and inclusivity for all, some claim online delivery has made education more accessible for some groups of students, but others claim it raised different barriers for others; for instance, students who were not allowed to use webcams because of living conditions or conservative culture of the family home suddenly found themselves able to only join through chats, slowing down their contribution and minimizing their voice.

Relaxed submission deadlines
Some institutions which have formal submission deadlines for course work seem to have relaxed their regulations to support students. For instance, removing the need to provide proof of illness (mainly if it is Covid-19 infection), may have resulted in a slight increase in the number of course work extension applications while others contested this saying they felt students did not take advantage of this relaxation.

Enhanced student support
Some institutions may have taken measures to provide extra support to students in the form of extra academic support on matters relating to learning, technical skills, mental health etc. This provision was well utilised by many students. Both academics and support services claim that they were overwhelmed by students requiring additional support, especially to understand/grasp the way the courses are delivered and they may have given them an unfair advantage compared to students taking similar subjects in the past.

Online assessments
Contrary to the expectation of many academics, the majority of online assessment methods (with a few exceptions) seem to have proven to maintain academic integrity. These online assessments include timed short answer questions, multiple choice, random question selections (where students get different questions). Open book exams, verbal exams etc. There were few subject specific integrity issues highlighted. However, the alleged number of academic misconducts have not increased compared to previous years; and the average module marks (with SEM) seem to be on  par with previous years. 

Applying predicted grades
Different universities seem to have (hastily) complied different algorithms to apply their “no detriment policies”. Some called it "Bench Mark Grade" (BMG) where students performance throughout the year was taken into consideration. The success and the receptiveness of BMG is not clear. Institutions considered individual student circumstances, whether the student was able to obtain the same support at home (as s/he would get in the university). Although  it is too early to understand the impact, we would like to know about the impact of this and what it meant in practice.
 
Student perceptions
During traditional examinations taken face to face, when a student reaches for a phone or looks over their shoulder, it is considered as cheating in many universities based on exam conditions described in policies and procedures. However with assessments moving to the online platform, the distinction may not have been as clear. Our initial discussions with a handful of academics have revealed that whilst majority of students seem nervous about engaging in exams online, a handful have been planning to beat the system. So, why do some students seem confused? Could it be that if they were sitting down for a hand-written final exam, students would not be expected to provide in-text citations? Or because there may be some mixed messages academics are sending them unintentionally? 
Considering the above, there may be practices implemented which can raise questions on fair or unfair advantage during a crisis in HE. Perhaps students may have realised the need for them to take the responsibility of being honest and uphold integrity. Perhaps not yet. The ENAI Ethical Advisory Group would like to hear your experiences on this subject (especially in the areas that are highlighted above). Please send your thoughts/experience or contact us with your interest to Shiva Sivasubramaniam (s.sivasubramaniam@derby.ac.uk) and Zeenath Khan (zeenath.khan@gmail.com).

By Tomáš Foltýnek
 
Let me share recent papers, which I believe might be of interest to the newsletter readers. 
 
Let’s start with plagiarism. The efforts of ENAI’s working group on the Testing of Support Tools for Plagiarism Detection (TeSToP) are still available in the form of preprint only, but the journal publication is very close. Researchers from the University of Calgary are currently working on a systematic literature review on how text-matching software tools are used in the post-secondary context. They have already published the review protocol, which uncovers their research questions:

I think this perfectly complements the TeSToP effort, and I am looking forward to their results.
 
Almost every paper about plagiarism starts with a definition. Kara Ronai from the University of Javäskylä looked at how institutional policies define plagiarism and what wording and language they use with respect to Diane Pecorari’s six elements of plagiarism.
In summary, the findings of this multiple case study suggest that the selected universities share a broad consensus on what plagiarism is, yet elements of this consensus diverge, as does the extent to which these elements are explicated in university documents [… A]lthough plagiarism can be robustly defined, dissenting opinions and understandings will persist. For those in higher education, engagement with the specifics of definitions and policies in institutional contexts is essential to further our understanding of plagiarism in academic writing.
Worth reading for anyone who designs institutional plagiarism policy.
 
And plagiarism for the third time, now from the technical perspective. Do you remember IJEI’s call for research to combat online paraphrasing services? A team from the University of Wuppertal developed a machine-learning-based tool that can distinguish original and spun content. It is not perfect, but still better than humans and much faster. You may try it out here and read how it works.
 
Moving from plagiarism to academic integrity in general. Tricia Bertram Gallant and Jason Stephens advocate for developmental, rather than punitive approach to academic integrity:
In this article, the authors argue that colleges and universities have an ethical obligation to respond to the problem of cheating in a way that honors higher education’s duty to facilitate students’ moral and civic development. After the authors compare and contrast the punitive versus developmental approach to cheating, they explore the promise and limits of punishment as well as the promise and limits of education. The article ends with a call-to-action for all colleges and universities to make the commitment to move away from the punitive and toward the developmental approach when responding to cheating.
 
The Global Essay Mills Survey, a project supported by ENAI, has another outcome. Rebecca Awdry reports on a large international research project which utilised the same survey tool across multiple countries. Respondents most commonly reported outsourcing assignments from friends and family, and peer-sharing sites, as compared to essay mills. Large differences were found in the self-reported outsourcing behaviours between countries. Due to the differing outsourcing methods used, a new definition is offered for these behaviours: assignment outsourcing.
 
And the best for the end. The Special Issue of the Journal of Academic Ethics is a collection of papers, most of which were presented at two sister conferences – the 5th international conference Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond and the 3rd international conference Shaping Ethics in Academia and Society, both held on 19–21 June 2019 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The last papers in the special issue have been published recently, and the issue is complete now.
Articles in the issue:

 
And staying with the Journal of Academic Ethics, in the latest issue, you should not miss the paper from Zeenat Reza Khan and her great students about Raising Awareness on Contract Cheating –Lessons Learned from Running Campus-Wide Campaigns.
 
As usual, I encourage you to let us know about the papers worth sharing. Otherwise, we have to rely on what Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Twitter suggest me :-)

The International Journal for Educational Integrity (IJEI, published by BMC Springer Nature) has just released a new Call for Papers (CFP) for a special collection: Integrity in an Emergency: Pandemics, Natural Disasters and Other Extreme Conditions. The goal of this series is to provide high-quality research on the impact of emergencies on topics related to educational integrity including:

Emergency situations include pandemics (including COVID-19), natural disasters, extreme geo-political conflict and other extreme conditions that might affect ethics and integrity in educational contexts. Submissions are welcome from all academic and scholarly disciplines. See the full call for papers.

Submission deadline: November 30, 2020

"On June 4, the Lancet, the British medical journal that is one of the most prestigious scientific publications in the world, withdrew a paper that had been one of the most consequential in the novel field of coronavirus studies."

The paper said that using antimalarial drugs to treat COVID-19 can raise risk of heart problems. The information had immediate impact on other research.
The retraction provokes many serious questions about the state of the current science. 

"A teaching assistant for Linear Algebra intentionally posted a false solution to a problem set question on Slader, a forbidden online resource. The post aimed to gather additional evidence of a pre-existing pattern of academic integrity violations in the class."
What is your opinion on such cheating on cheaters? Is it ethical for teachers to lay traps?
Find the whole story at the The Daily Princetonian.

We will approach you with the regular newsletter in August 2020. If you want to share with us, and with other recipients, any interesting news from your country or some curiosities from the area of academic integrity, we will welcome your contributions. Please send them to info@academicintegrity.eu before the end of July.
Feel free to share the newsletter with your friends and colleagues, or send them this subscription link, the newsletter is open to everyone!