This study investigated faculty attitudes towards student violations of academic integrity in Canada using a qualitative review of 17 universities’ academic integrity/dishonesty policies combined with a quantitative survey of faculty members’ (N = 412) attitudes and behaviours around academic integrity and dishonesty. Results showed that 53.1% of survey respondents see academic dishonesty as a worsening problem at their institutions. Generally, they believe their respective institutional policies are sound in principle but fail in application. Two of the major factors identified by (...) faculty as contributing to academic dishonesty are administrative. Many faculty members feel unsupported by their administration and are reluctant to formally report academic dishonesty due to the excessive burdens of dealing with paperwork and providing proof. Faculty members also cite unprepared students and international students who struggle with language issues and the Canadian academic context as major contributors to academic dishonesty. This study concludes with recommendations for educators and recommendations for future research. (shrink)

This institutional self-study investigated the use of text-matching software to prevent plagiarism by students in a Canadian university that did not have an institutional license for TMS at the time of the study. Assignments from a graduate-level engineering course were analyzed using iThenticate®. During the initial phase of the study, similarity scores from the first student assignments were collected to determine a baseline level of textual similarity. Students were then offered an educational intervention workshop on academic integrity. Another set of (...) similarity scores from consenting participants’ second assignments were then collected, and a statistically significant assignment effect was found between the similarity scores of the two assignments. The results of this study indicate that TMS, when used in conjunction with educational interventions about academic integrity, can be useful to students and educators to prevent and identify academic misconduct. This study adds to the growing body of empirical research about academic integrity in Canadian higher education and, in particular, in engineering fields. (shrink)

The topics of equity, diversity, inclusion, decolonization, and Indigenization have been neglected in academic and research integrity. In this article, I offer examples of how these issues are being addressed and argue that academic integrity networks and organizations ought to develop intentional strategies for equity, diversity and inclusion, and decolonization in terms of leadership, scholarship, and professional opportunities. I point out that existing systems perpetuate the conditions that allow for overrepresentation of reporting among particular student groups including international students, students (...) of colour, and those for whom English is an additional language. I conclude with concrete recommendations for action. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to understand how academic integrity educational tutorials are administered across Canadian higher education. Results are shared from a survey of publicly funded Canadian higher education institutions, including universities and colleges, across ten provinces where English is the primary language of instruction. The survey contained 29 items addressing institutional demographic details, as well as academic integrity education questions. Results showed that academic integrity tutorials are inconsistent across Canadian higher education, with further differences evident within the (...) university and college sectors. (shrink)

New technologies could facilitate new ways of cheating. This emerging scenario places academic integrity policy in higher education institutions as critical. Academic integrity scholars have designed conceptual frameworks to analyze academic integrity policy. The body of the literature on academic integrity policy analysis includes studies developed in North America, Europe, and Australia. However, insight into several regions of the world is lacking. This pioneering study in the Chilean context analyzes documents addressing academic integrity at forty-three accredited universities. Using a qualitative (...) research design, we framed this policy analysis in the five core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy: access, approach, responsibility, detail, and support. The findings revealed challenges with accessing documents online, a strong presence of legal language that might not be understandable to all students, and a scarcity of information about review cycles. The punitive approach was prevalent, with a significant focus on students’ conduct. Signs of collaboration and mechanisms for promoting academic integrity cultures were nearly absent. The documents primarily targeted students and the roles of other stakeholders concentrated on the enforcement of sanctions and misconduct investigations. The analysis also showed the use of general definitions to describe academic integrity breaches, inconsistency across the system in defining plagiarism and a lack of guidance to address contract cheating and unauthorized use of generative artificial intelligence. The findings also highlighted the unavailability of institutional support to teach, learn, and research with integrity or references to research-based practices. We propose twelve practical recommendations for policymakers and academic integrity advocates. (shrink)

In this study, we analyzed the academic integrity policies of colleges in Ontario, Canada, casting a specific lens on contract cheating. We extracted data from 28 individual documents from 22-publicly-funded colleges including policies and procedures (n = 27) and code of conduct (n = 1). We analyzed the characteristics of the documents from three perspectives: (a) document type and titles; (b) policy language; and (c) policy principles. Then we examined five core elements of the documentation including (a) access; (b) approach; (...) (c) responsibility; (d) detail; and (e) support. Key findings revealed that specific and direct language pertaining to contract cheating was largely absent from the policy documents, that underlying policy principles lacked clear definition, and that exemplary policy has yet to be developed in this context. We conclude with recommendations for increased policy research in the area of academic integrity and a call for policy revision in Canadian higher education institutions to more explicitly address the issue of contract cheating, as well as provide more support to students and other campus stakeholders to better understand how contract cheating impacts and impedes teaching and learning. (shrink)

This paper explores contract cheating from the perspectives of researchers at three post-secondary institutions in Alberta, Canada, describing their efforts to develop and advance awareness of, interventions against, and responses to contract cheating at their respective institutions. Contract cheating is when a third party produces or completes academic work for a student, and the student then presents the work as their own. The student might have personal connections to the third party, or the student might pay a fee and outsource (...) the academic work to the third party. All three institutions are experiencing an increase in the incidence of contract cheating, which is consistent with trends at colleges and universities across Canada and the world. Contract cheating is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one, due in part to students having access to thousands of online companies offering to help them with their academic work. This paper examines personal narratives from four researchers and identifies five key themes: types of contract cheating, students, awareness, evidence and policy implications, and educational development. (shrink)

We present findings of a literature review on the topic of educational integrity in the Canadian context. Our search revealed 56 sources, published between 1992 and 2017. A historical overview showed a rise in the number of scholarly publications in recent years, but with an overall limited number of research contributions. We identified three major themes in the literature: (a) empirical research; (b) prevention and professional development; and (c) other (scholarly essay). Our analysis showed little evidence of sustained research programs (...) in Canada over time or national funding to support integrity-related inquiry. We also found that graduate students who completed their theses on topics related to educational integrity often have not published further work in the field later in their careers. We provide five concrete recommendations to elevate and accelerate the research agenda on educational integrity in Canada on a national level. We conclude with a call to action for increased research to better understand the particular characteristics of educational integrity in Canada. (shrink)

In our descriptive exploratory qualitative study, we investigated the issue of contract cheating in Iranian higher education contexts. Through our analysis, we provide insights into measures taken in Iran to prevent contract cheating and mitigate its effects. Our study analyses secondary data including scholarly articles, published media, and the country’s current policies. Results showed that more empirical primary data from which to draw definitive conclusions is needed, and as such, developing an evidence-based body of knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics (...) of contract cheating in Iran remains a persistent call to action. Our analysis of scholarly studies (_n_ = 102) and grey literature sources (_n_ = 195) showed an overarching lack of university accountability; students’ motives for engaging in contract cheating; and lack of appropriate legislation were enabling factors. We conclude that Iran lags behind other countries with regards to what is known about contract cheating and how to address it; as such, we conclude with a call to action for increased supports for education; policy and legislation; and scholarship. (shrink)

This article presents results from a self-report survey of misconduct behaviours and the stress students (n = 916) experienced at one Canadian community college. Results showed that students engaged in a variety of contract cheating behaviours, and experienced a myriad of stressors both in and outside the college context, including traumatic life events. Those who engaged in commercial contract cheating and inappropriate sharing behaviours experienced significantly higher levels of stress. This result differed by type of stress suggesting that not all (...) stress may lead to violation behaviour. Results also suggest that some students are exposed to more stress than others, which could put them at higher risk for engaging in contract cheating. Understanding contract cheating using the stress process framework draws our attention to how a student’s location in the social institutions of work, family, and school, how their positions of advantage or disadvantage, and their involvement in social relationships may produce stress which we have found to be associated with contract cheating. Seeing stress in this way allows post-secondary institutions to address the structural conditions which lead to stress through the development of policy, procedure, and supports for students as they navigate academic integrity throughout their programs. (shrink)

Urban and agricultural communities are interdependent but often differ on approaches for improving water quality impaired by nutrient runoff waterbodies worldwide. Current water quality governance involves an overlapping array of policy tools implemented by governments, civil society organizations, and corporate supply chains. The choice of regulatory and voluntary tools is likely to influence many dimensions of the relationship between urban and agricultural actors. These relationships then influence future conditions for collective decision-making since many actors participate for multiple years in water (...) quality improvement. In this policy analysis, we draw on our professional experiences and research, as well as academic and practitioner literatures, to investigate how different types of water quality interventions influence urban-agricultural relationships, specifically examining policy tools on a regulatory to voluntary spectrum. Interactions between farmers and other rural agricultural interests on one hand, and urban residents and their stormwater managers and wastewater treatment plants on the other, influence dynamics relevant for water quality improvement. We suggest that the selection of policy tools within complex governance contexts influence urban–agricultural relationships through financial exchange, political coalitions, knowledge exchange, interpersonal relationships, and shared sense of place. Policy tools that provide a means to build relationships and engage with people’s emotions and identities have potential to influence personal and community change and adaptive capacity, while processes such as lawsuits can catalyze structural change. Engaging these relationships is particularly critical given the need to move out of polarized positions to solve collective problems. (shrink)

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

There is a special poignancy to the fact that Pleshette DeArmitt's essay "Sarah Kofman's Art of Affirmation" foregrounds Freud's essay "On Transience," in which he muses on the fact that beauty seems to be inextricably linked to a fleeting existence. As DeArmitt writes, "beauty, even in full flowering, foreshadows its own demise, causing what Freud describes as 'a foretaste of mourning.'" Such a transience, in Freud's mind, increases rather than decreases the worth of all that is beautiful. In her (...) essay, DeArmitt argues that Kofman's 1985 text Mélancolie de l'Art reinscribes Freud's text, but brings it into the present by pointing to contemporary art as the occasion for the opening up of a new space, one capable of "dislocat[ing] the space of representation and meaning" and "invent[ing] a space of indetermination and play.” Through dislocation of a fixed reference or meaning and opening up a place for indeterminacy and play, contemporary art acknowledges and celebrates, rather than regrets, the transience of beauty. (shrink)

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it.Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, (...) and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inarticulate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate. (shrink)

Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vacabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury (...) trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre. Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inatriculate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate. About the Author: Elaine Scarry is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. (shrink)

The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation argues for the philosophical importance of the notion of need and for an ethical framework through which we can determine which needs have moral significance. In the volume, Sarah Clark Miller synthesizes insights from Kantian and feminist care ethics to establish that our mutual and inevitable interdependence gives rise to a duty to care for the needs of others. Further, she argues that we are obligated not merely to meet others’ needs (...) but to do so in a manner that expresses "dignifying care," a concept that captures how human interactions can grant or deny equal moral standing and inclusion in a moral community. She illuminates these theoretical developments by examining two cases where urgent needs require a caring and dignifying response: the needs of the elderly and the needs of global strangers. Those working in the areas of feminist theory, women’s studies, aging studies, bioethics, and global studies should find this volume of interest. (shrink)

An assessment of America's preference for "extra-large" shares examples ranging from mega churches and breast augmentation to landfills and mega-malls, in a cautionary report that reveals some of the consequences of these choices.

Titian's Rape of Europa is highly praised for its luminous colors and sensual textures. But the painting has an overlooked dark side, namely that it eroticizes rape. I argue that this is an ethical defect that diminishes the painting aesthetically. This argument-that an artwork can be worse off qua work of art precisely because it is somehow ethically problematic-demonstrates that feminist concerns about art can play a legitimate role in art criticism and aesthetic appreciation.

Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. In this book, Moss argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your .4 credence that it is raining outside can constitute knowledge, in just the same way that your full beliefs can. In addition, you can know that it might be raining, and that if it is raining then it is probably cloudy, where this knowledge is not knowledge of propositions, (...) but of probabilistic contents. -/- The notion of probabilistic content introduced in this book plays a central role not only in epistemology, but in the philosophy of mind and language as well. Just as tradition holds that you believe and assert propositions, you can believe and assert probabilistic contents. Accepting that we can believe, assert, and know probabilistic contents has significant consequences for many philosophical debates, including debates about the relationship between full belief and credence, the semantics of epistemic modals and conditionals, the contents of perceptual experience, peer disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, perceptual dogmatism, and transformative experience. In addition, accepting probabilistic knowledge can help us discredit negative evaluations of female speech, explain why merely statistical evidence is insufficient for legal proof, and identify epistemic norms violated by acts of racial profiling. Hence the central theses of this book not only help us better understand the nature of our own mental states, but also help us better understand the nature of our responsibilities to each other. (shrink)

Background Researchers are required to determine whether a person has capacity to consent to a research study before they are able to participate. The Mental Capacity Act and accompanying Code of Practice for England and Wales provide some guidance on this process, but researchers have identified that it can be difficult to determine capacity to consent when a person has complex cognitive or communication needs. This study aimed to understand the experiences and opinions of researchers who recruit people with dementia (...) to research projects, to inform the future development of training resources. Methods A mixed method, cross-sectional, electronic survey was circulated via social media and research networks in England and Wales. The survey remained open for ten weeks and included open and closed questions exploring respondents’ confidence in determining capacity in the context of recruiting people with dementia to consent, their views on training and support they have experienced and their suggestions for future training and support needs. Results 60 respondents completed the survey from across England and Wales. Although 75% of respondents had experience of determining capacity to consent with people with dementia to research, only 13% rated themselves as feeling ‘very confident’ in this. Qualitative content analysis of open responses led to the generation of six themes, explaining researchers’ confidence, competence and future training needs in this area: (1) Researcher uncertainties, (2) Lack of time, (3) Balancing information complexity with accessibility, (4) Gatekeepers, (5) Existing enablers and (6) Envisioning future training. Conclusions Researchers would benefit from specific training in undertaking conversations around consent with people with dementia. People with dementia may have fluctuating capacity, and despite support from caregivers, researchers have little practical guidance on methods of determining a person’s ability to understand or appreciate the information they have provided during the consent process. Given the development of large complex trials within dementia research, there is an urgency to develop specific and practical guidance and training for researchers working with people with dementia and their families. (shrink)

This is the first volume on category theory for a broad philosophical readership. It is designed to show the interest and significance of category theory for a range of philosophical interests: mathematics, proof theory, computation, cognition, scientific modelling, physics, ontology, the structure of the world.

"--J.M.Coetzee "Here is a writer almost magically summoning up the world through words and ideas, in a new way, and so guiding the reader, lovingly, to receive the treasures and accept the pleasures of this book as naturally as breathing.

Just Business provides the first comprehensive, reasoned framework for resolving questions of business ethics and corporate governance. Innovative, accessible, and global in scope, its powerful Ethical Decision Model can be used to manage the ethical problems of business as they arise in all their complexity and variety. Just Business combines business realism with philosophical rigor, and demonstrates that it is not necessary to emasculate or to adulterate business for business to be ethical. The book benefits from Elaine Sternberg's extensive (...) experience as an academic philosopher, an international investment banker, and head of successful businesses. She is now Principal of a London-headquartered consultancy firm, and Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. (shrink)

This paper develops a precise understanding of the thesis of moral encroachment, which states that the epistemic status of an opinion can depend on its moral features. In addition, I raise objections to existing accounts of moral encroachment. For instance, many accounts fail to give sufficient attention to moral encroachment on credences. Also, many accounts focus on moral features that fail to support standard analogies between pragmatic and moral encroachment. Throughout the paper, I discuss racial profiling as a case study, (...) arguing that moral encroachment can help us identify one respect in which racial profiling is epistemically problematic. (shrink)

Introduction: The humanities enrich and transform the practice of medicine. What remains to be seen, however, is how best to integrate humanities into the medical curriculum to optimize both educational and patient-related outcomes. The present study considers the structure of an innovative student-driven humanities curriculum and seeks to understand its strengths and limitations, as well as make recommendations for improvement. Methods: The Penn State College of Medicine, University Park Regional Campus uses an inquiry-based approach to education, whereby students are responsible (...) for creating learning objectives in four core pillars of exploration: Foundational Science, Clinical Science, Health Systems Science, and Health Humanities. This study explores student-derived humanities learning objectives (HLO) across four years of the curriculum. Results: 420 HLOs met criteria for analysis and were coded as instrumental (developing direct clinical skill), non-instrumental (non-skill based), or both. Of these, 125 (30%) were instrumental, 239 (57%) were non-instrumental, and 56 (13%) were coded as both. Most instrumental HLO centered around communication skills. Non-instrumental HLO most commonly focused on bearing witness and critiquing a particular experience within a social and/or political context. Conclusions: Findings from this study contribute to the development of a humanities curriculum in a student-directed learning program. Non-instrumental HLO lacked a theoretical framework to guide student’s investigations to a deeper level of analysis. Student-directed learning offers many strengths, but can be enhanced through external direction from humanities trained faculty, particularly given that many medical students have a limited humanities background. (shrink)

"--Robert Fagles, translator of Homer's "Iliad" "I finished "Dreaming by the Book" feeling that fundamental aspects of the nature of consciousness had been peeled open and exposed to view."--Stephen M. Kosslyn, author of "Image and Brain".

This paper considers the nature and role of axioms from the point of view of the current debates about the status of category theory and, in particular, in relation to the "algebraic" approach to mathematical structuralism. My aim is to show that category theory has as much to say about an algebraic consideration of meta-mathematical analyses of logical structure as it does about mathematical analyses of mathematical structure, without either requiring an assertory mathematical or meta-mathematical background theory as a "foundation", (...) or turning meta-mathematical analyses of logical concepts into "philosophical" ones. Thus, we can use category theory to frame an interpretation of mathematics according to which we can be structuralists all the way down. (shrink)