IV. Evaluating Students' Work

Academic Honesty and the Honor System

As a faculty member or TA, your academic honesty begins with your commitment to teaching: your desire to continue life-long learning and your motivation to instill that desire in students. You must be willing constantly to improve your expertise by conducting appropriate research and to bring its questions, implications, and excitement into the classroom. Commitment to self-improvement combines with selfevaluation: How well do you know the subject matter, and how well do you convey it? On a pragmatic level, academic honesty vis-à-vis students begins with "Preparing a Course" and continues through "Interacting with Students" in an intellectually honest way to "Evaluating Students' Work." Academic honesty vis-à-vis colleagues means scrutinizing data and conclusions before reporting them and acknowledging in research presentations all cooperative effort, no matter how minor.
Academic honesty is a vital ingredient in the University of Virginia Honor System, a structure maintained by the students since the 1840s (see details at http://scs.student.virginia.edu/~honor). Within the Honor System, students are understood to live in a community of trust, that is, to be trustworthy, honest, and committed to the ideal that a person's word is his or her bond. A student who breaches the system can be expelled. As faculty members and TAs, you do not participate in governing the system directly; by taking a teaching position at U.Va., however, you accept a proviso that you understand, accept, and comply with the word and spirit of the Honor System.
You should take advantage of Honor System procedures. Required or implied for all written work done by students of the University of Virginia, the standard Honor Pledge reads:

"On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment."

• Remind your students, especially first-year students, of the pledge; show that you take the Honor System seriously.
  
  
• Make clear the acceptable parameters of assignments. Revise the Honor Pledge to correspond to specific assignments or exams. If you recommend, for instance, multiple drafts in consultation with a writing tutor or editor, have students clearly acknowledge such help: "On my honor as a student, I have received editorial help from the following people: . . ."
  
  
• State requirements unambiguously in writing. For example, for a timed take-home assignment, state explicitly whether students are to return the project within four hours, have four hours to finish once begun, or can spend a total of four hours, working in shorter blocks of time. Is any required typing time part of the four hours?
  
  
• Reduce the temptation to cheat. Create entirely new exams, and distribute previous exams so that students have equal access to your format and style. Guard copies of current exams scrupulously. Require that students submit early drafts of written assignments with their final copy.
  
  
• Discuss plagiarism. Many students do not understand it completely, and even more do not know standard citation rules until you teach them. Good examples and finite rules appear in the booklet "Academic Fraud and the Honor System," available from the Honor Committee (924-7602) or online at http://scs.student.virginia.edu/~honor/proc/fraud.html.
  
  
• You may choose to remain in an exam room if you wish. By being there you can answer students' questions and post the time for those without watches. But you should never give the impression that you don't trust your students.

If you suspect a case of cheating, consult immediately with your course supervisor, department chair, faculty representative to the Honor Committee, or student Honor Advisor. If you plan to pursue the matter, do not approach the student directly; by doing so, you would eliminate the student's right to conscientious retraction, a voluntary admission of responsibility that absolves the student of guilt under the Honor System. You should also have read about and understood the Honor System as explained by the Honor Committee. Questions of discipline for honor violations are a student responsibility, delegated to them by the Board of Visitors; each case is a question of fact.
The Honor System does, however, recognize that instructors have sole authority over grading in their courses. If you have irrefutable evidence that a student cheated or committed plagiarism consciously, you may grade that piece of work as you deem appropriate. But be aware that what looks like strong evidence may prove inconclusive. Faculty grievance committees investigating students' appeals of failures in cases of suspected cheating have disagreed with instructors' evaluation of "evidence." Consider facts meticulously before assigning final grades. In short, heed Polonius' admonition: "To thine own self be true." By being honest with yourself and your students, you maintain academic integrity.