IntroductionDistance education courses, whether they are fully online or blended, pose new challenges in the area of Academic Integrity, for faculty and students alike. Combine student high technology implementation with new technology constantly being available, and this often equates to new ways to diminish integrity. With the Internet being readily available and providing a constant resource, students may find the challenge to resist using the work of others or finding an exam answer firmly out of their reach. Presenting students with guidelines or discussions concerning integrity early in each course will go a long way to secure decisions which will help develop ethical behavior and improve Academic Integrity. This document contains information and strategies that will help foster Academic Integrity within online and blended courses. Information contained within this document is broken into several sections in order to easily locate information concerning particular topics. The first section lists unique scenarios that are considered as integrity issues and could be encountered while teaching online. Other sections include strategies to foster Academic Integrity, such as contingency plan suggestions, and helpful information you can easily cut and paste into your course materials as necessary. As you skim each of the sections, look for suggestions for past course issues and incorporate solutions for those situations into your current syllabus. A contingency plan should appear on your course syllabus in order that students know their assigned responsibilities and expectations in an unplanned, online outage situation. Consider the following Scenarios:Though some Academic Integrity issues are clear and easily recognized, others may not be so visible. Along with the blatant act of passing one student’s work off as another student’s own papers and exams, the following scenarios are also considered violations of Academic Integrity issues.
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