System Handbook on Guidelines and Effective Practices for Dealing with Student Academic Dishonesty

Spring
2015
Resolution Number
07.01
 
Contact
Assigned to
Educational Policies Committee
Category
Consultation with the Chancellor's Office
Status
Not Addressed
Status Report

Waiting for direction from legal counsel at CCCCO and ASCCC President. 2017 - 18: The chair will follow up with CO legal counsel to determine if any practices or policies have been developed in this area. If not, the committee will discuss whether or not this resolution is still relevant since it is 3 years old. If it is, the committee will determine next steps.

Whereas, Resolution 13.05 S13[1] called for the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges to “reinitiate its effort to review and, where appropriate, draft language to revise Title 5 regulations to allow for the failure of students for egregious acts of academic dishonesty while also protecting all students’ rights to due process”;

Whereas, The rights and responsibilities of faculty and students when acts of academic dishonesty by students are observed and reported by faculty are not always clear or well-understood, which may result in faculty frustration and a reduced willingness to report such incidents out of concern for being involved in lengthy disciplinary proceedings that may be seen as unfair to the faculty, or out of fear of being sued by students;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has numerous publications, including Rostrum articles and the 2007 paper Promoting and Sustaining an Institutional Climate of Academic Integrity, that present effective practices for preventing acts of academic dishonesty and the status of Chancellor’s Office legal interpretations of what can and cannot be done by faculty with respect to assigning grades when students are caught engaging in egregious acts of academic dishonesty, but Academic Senate publications do not provide legal advice to faculty; and

Whereas, The Chancellor’s Office has developed handbooks on topics such as distance education, accessibility and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and repeatability, yet no such handbook currently exists that provides guidance to the field regarding student academic dishonesty;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges work with the Chancellor’s Office and other system partners to develop a handbook for the system that provides both effective practices for the prevention and effective handling of incidents of student academic dishonesty and legal guidance.

MSC