Ireland’s inaugural National Academic Integrity Week takes place this week from Monday 19 to Friday 23 October 2020. This programme of 14 online events aims to “share guidance and best practice in upholding and cultivating academic integrity” and includes webinars organised and hosted by Irish higher education institutions and agencies.
Programme of Events
Monday 19 October
11:00 – 12:00 |
Student Role in Raising the Right Kind of Awareness for Integrity and Against Contract Cheating
Host: The European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) Moderator: Dr Zeenath Khan, University of Wollongong Dubai More details and registration are available here. This panel discussion with higher education students promises to unfold the possibilities and bring students to the forefront of the conversation to find out how students can and do play a role in actively raising the right kind of awareness towards integrity and against contract cheating. For most educators, it is of paramount importance that we are able to instil in our students values of academic integrity, to help students stay away from such misconducts as contract cheating, and thus, cultivate a culture of integrity in our classrooms. However, more often our conversation happens “over” and “around” the students – the most important stakeholder of academic integrity. Sure, lack of integrity raises doubts on our quality of teaching, devalues the degrees – but the vast majority of the impact lies at the feet of students, intentional, unintentional and bystanders. While all students don’t cheat or contract cheat, most students are aware of others who have engaged in contracting others to do their work, as silent observers of the act being committed. This often has dire consequences and implications for the bystanders too – from demotivation, to agitation to aggression and sometimes motivation. So, what would happen if students were part of the dialogue? What would happen if students played a bigger role in raising the right kind of awareness for integrity and against contract cheating? |
12:30 – 14:00 |
Consider Technology to Support Academic Integrity
Based on the EDTL Advice for Academic Integrity in Online Assessment, this webinar will focus on how you can use digital technologies to create an environment conducive to Academic Integrity and to support alternative assessment methods. Sign up here to receive the link to join the webinar and others in the IUADigEd series. Registration for individual webinars is not required. |
Tuesday 20 October
10:00 – 11:00 |
Towards a Culture of Academic Integrity at IT Sligo
Presenters: Gavin Clinch, Head of Online Learning and Jennifer Gilligan, Instructional Designer, Centre for Online Learning, IT Sligo; and Nick Broom, Senior Learning Consultant When Epigeum announced the proposal to produce an online programme on academic integrity, IT Sligo saw an opportunity to further their aims of developing a culture of academic integrity within the institution and joined the development group. In this way, they brought their experience and expertise to the creation of the programme and in March 2020 the programme was published in two versions, one for staff and one for students, and IT Sligo set about implementing them. This webinar will look at IT Sligo’s approach to fostering academic integrity at the institute, including how online provision has been integrated, its impact on practice, and its plans for the future. There will also be a brief reference to how Epigeum is working with institutions throughout Ireland on a number of programmes. Register in advance here. |
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11:00 – 12:00 |
Where is the borderline of plagiarism?
Presenters: Dr Tomáš Foltýnek and Dr Dita Dlabolová, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic The workshop is a mixture of information, activities to make participants think about the issues and discussions. It also presents results from European-wide surveys about plagiarism. Participants are encouraged to share their personal experience. We will talk about the understanding of plagiarism, discuss several scenarios and assess their severity. We will also consider reasons leading students to plagiarism, and discuss prevention, and also the policies and penalties which are a necessary part of prevention. As for prevention, we will share the best practices collected in the European-wide project. In the end, a brief introduction to the technical aspects of plagiarism detection will be given: what are the plagiarism detection tools able to discover, where are their limits and how to read similarity reports. More details and registration are available here. |
15:00 – 16:00 |
Academic Integrity in the post-truth, fake news era
Presenter: Dr Kevin O’Rourke, Digital Campus Architect, TU Dublin In this guest lecture, Dr O’ Rourke will highlight a number of new challenges in relation to academic integrity with particular reference to the global explosion of fake news and fake information. Register in advance here. |
Wednesday 21 October
11:00 – 12:00 |
The Irish Academic Integrity Project: Enhancing Academic Integrity and Regulating Academic Misconduct in the Higher Education Sector
Presenters: Dr Deirdre Stritch (Approval and Monitoring Manager) and Sue Hackett (National Academic Integrity Network Co-ordinator), Quality and Qualifications Ireland In this webinar, as part of the ICAI series Twenty in 20 series, the presenters will talk about the Irish Academic Integrity project initiated by QQI (Quality and Qualifications Ireland), the National Academic Integrity Network (NAIN), including what has been achieved to date, the current focus and what activities are planned in collaboration with stakeholders in higher education in the Irish context as the project moves forward. Register in advance here. This webinar is part of the ICAI series of 20 events from across the globe over 20 hours, Twenty in 20 – Sharing and Conversation about Contract Cheating, involving students, institutions, quality assurance and higher education agencies. The event will host 20 hours of live feed from around the world devoted to sharing and talking about the issue of contract cheating in different countries. Information on the International Day including the programme and registration details can be found here. |
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12:30 – 13:30 |
Explorations in Academic IntegrityHost: Dundalk Institute of Technology Presenters: Dr Moira Maguire, Head of Learning and Teaching; Dr Colletta Dalikeni, School of Business and Humanities; Dr Kevin Howard, School of Business and Humanities; Mr Christoper O’ Neill, DkIT Students Union Vice-President for Student Engagement This webinar will be a conversation exploring Academic Integrity from a wide variety of perspectives: academics, students and representatives from the Institute’s Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT). Register in advance here. |
15:00 – 16:00 |
Academic Integrity Student Webinar
Presenters: Hibernia College Academic Integrity Team Hibernia College, as part of the Oct 21st International Day of Academic Integrity, will hold a webinar exploring how we can commit to and demonstrate honest and moral behaviour in an academic setting. Register in advance here. |
16:00 – 17:00 |
Fostering Academic Integrity in the ClassroomNational Academic Integrity Network Webinar Series
Host: Quality and Qualifications Ireland Presenter: Dr Tricia Bertram Gallant, Director, Academic Integrity Office, University of California San Diego In the 2nd National Academic Integrity Network webinar, Dr Bertram Gallant, an internationally recognised expert on integrity and ethics in education, will focus on what teachers can do in their classrooms to foster academic integrity with their groups of learners, incorporating principles and approaches to academic integrity into their programme design, pedagogy, and teaching and learning methodology. Register in advance here. |
17:15 – 18:00 |
The Ethics of Academic Integrity
Presenters: Mohammad Hoseini, School of Theology, Philosophy & Music; Caitlin Grant, Student Union Humanities & Social Sciences Rep; Billy Kelly, DCU Dean of Teaching and Learning Chair: Dr Fiona O’Riordan, Academic Developer, Teaching Enhancement Unit The aim of this panel discussion is to reframe the discourse around academic integrity from a policy-driven punitive approach to a sense of personal responsibility driven by our own internal moral compass. Register in advance here. |
Thursday 22 October
10:00 – 12:00 |
The Business of Contract Cheating
Host: IT Carlow (part of National Forum-funded seminar series) Presenters: Dr Thomas Lancaster (Imperial College London) and Kevin McStravock (Vice President for Academic Affairs, Union of Students in Ireland) Contract cheating involves all activities where a learner acquires academic work from a third party and submits it to a higher education institution without acknowledging the third-party contribution. The contribution can either be paid or unpaid. It is a form of academic misconduct and plagiarism. Contract cheating has many levels and is a thriving business, having a sophisticated business model which exploits learner vulnerabilities. COVID-19 has opened many new avenues which this sector has been quick to exploit. This seminar will look at how the contract cheating businesses are engaging learners in new ways. It will discuss how learners are being groomed to engage in academic misconduct. By understanding the engagement mechanisms, exploring the motivation of the learners to purchase assessments will be discussed. How this is addressed will involve engaging the learners in developing a systemic culture of academic integrity. Register in advance here. |
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11:00 – 12:00 |
The COVID-19 Teacher Qualification – Promoting Academic Integrity for teaching and learning during the pandemic
Host: European Network for Academic Integrity Panel Members: Valerie P. Denney, DBA, (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, US); Mustafa Yunus Eryaman, PhD, (President of The World Education Research Association); Canakkale Onsekiz (Mart University, Turkey); Inga Gaizauskaite, (Lithuanian Social Research Centre & Vilnius University, Lithuania); Salim Razı, PhD; Canakkale Onsekiz (Mart University, Turkey); Fiona O’Riordan, PhD (Dublin City University); Camilla J Roberts, PhD (Kansas State University, ICAI President) Moderator: Sonja Bjelobaba, PhD (ENAI Vice-president, Uppsala University, Sweden) The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for us all – not least for teachers that in many cases were forced to overnight start teaching online. The lectures, seminars, assessments, meetings: everything has moved onto different online platforms. Nonetheless, academic integrity and its values were to be sustained. What are the lessons learned? How well did we do? What experiences and best practices can we share with each other? How can we design online assessments in a way that decreases misconduct such as plagiarism, contract cheating, and collusion? Those are some of the questions that will be discussed in this webinar with teachers from several different countries, including Ireland. More details and registration are available here. |
12:30 – 13:30 |
Promoting Academic Integrity through Robust Assessment Design
Presenter: Dr Laura Costelloe (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick) Dr Costelloe will speak on a range of strategies and tools for educators to promote academic integrity via assessment design. The talk is being offered as part of CCT College Dublin’s Excellence in Teaching Series which includes internal and external speakers from across the sector with the aim of promoting sectoral discourse on a range of key topics. Register in advance here. |
Friday 23 October
11:00 – 12:00 |
Building your own ethical behaviours in medical research
Host: European Network of Academic Integrity Presenter: Dr S D Sivasubramaniam (University of Derby, United Kingdom) This case study-based workshop is suited for graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in the fields of science and medicine. It will focus on ethical behaviour and integrity in every aspect of scientific/medical research. Many of these case studies were gathered from actual real-life experiences of students and academics. Participants are expected to interact with each other by discussing the scenarios provided to conclude the right approach and actions suitable for each scenario. In this way, participants may gain greater knowledge and experience in ethical behaviour in research. More details and registration are available here. |
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