Heather Webb said plagiarism and collusion are the most common forms of academic dishonesty at Eastern.

Collusion occurs when a group of students works together on an individual assignment.

“There are also some forms of academic dishonesty that students may not readily recognize as being dishonest, such as fabricating a doctor’s note in an effort to be excused from a class or to gain additional time to complete an assignment,” Webb, director of judicial affairs, said.

When the academic integrity of a student is compromised, Webb said it not only reflects poorly upon the student, but it also casts a negative light upon the institution.

“When a student obtains their degree through dishonest means-cheating in class- then they devalue the EIU degree,” Webb said. “When an Eastern alum goes into the workplace and does something dishonest, they not only put their own career in jeopardy, but they are again devaluing the Eastern education.”

The faculty senate has chosen academic integrity as this year’s topic for their annual faculty forum.

Librarian Ann Brownson said she attended a conference on academic integrity last year and thought the subject would be of interest to all members of the campus community.

“There have been a number of situations involving scholars plagiarizing,” Brownson said. “And with the increase in ease of plagiarism by students due to the online environment, it just seemed like a timely topic.”

As a librarian, Brownson interacts with students on a daily basis and said she has had to deal with issues of academic integrity. A student will come to the reference desk looking for sources to use for a paper. After talking to the student, Browson said it is revealed that the paper is complete, written mainly from Internet sources, and the student is just looking for citations to use in the assignment.

Brownson also serves on the university judicial board. There have been instances where she has served on committees that have had to ask students to leave the university because of academic misconduct.

Brownson said she hopes today’s faculty forum will help address common misconceptions about academic integrity.

“This is sometimes a difficult concept for people to get, especially when our culture says that if it comes from the Internet, it’s free and everybody ‘owns’ it,” Brownson said.

John Stimac, chair of the faculty forum committee, said the forum will begin with a brief introduction to the topic of academic integrity. Participants will then be broken up into smaller discussion groups in order to address specific questions on the issue.

Towards the end of the forum, the information from the breakout sessions will be presented. The discussion summaries will be published in the faculty senate’s minutes.

Last year about 80 people attended the forum, nearly 30 attendees were students, the rest were faculty members, Stimac said.

The senate will conduct a brief business meeting before the forum.

The faculty forum begins at 2 p.m. in Booth Library Conference Room 4440.

Barbara Harrington can be reached at 581-7942 or at bjharrington@eiu.edu.