‘Academic integrity’ group is at work

Issues of “academic integrity” — prevention of plagiarism and cheating — are likely to get a higher profile at UW this fall thanks to a working group chaired by associate provost Bruce Mitchell.

Background on the group is presented by Barbara Bulman-Fleming of the teaching resource office, in the latest issue of the office’s Teaching Matters newsletter. She says the Academic Integrity Working Group was set up in September 2005 and includes “faculty-member, administration, undergraduate- and graduate-student, staff, and Faculty- Association representation. Bruce chairs this group, which has met monthly since that time.

“We have the official blessing of the Deans Council, every member of whom believes that AI-related issues need to be addressed more seriously and that more needs to be done in the way of educating faculty, staff and students.”

Says Bulman-Fleming: “We are developing a plan to engage the students and faculty members of the University in the CAI’s web-based survey, possibly as early as this fall, and are discussing ways to address such issues as education of students, staff, and faculty members about AI, and detection of dishonest behaviour.

“There are many models for how best to educate students about why academic integrity is fundamental to what we do at the university. Some examples are: web-based AI tutorials (compulsory or not); activities during orientation week such as skits or contests to analyse and suggest solutions to moral dilemmas; web sites about how to avoid plagiarism in essay-writing; booklets about proper citation practice, etc.”

She says faculty members should “discuss academic integrity with our students at the beginning of the year, and provide information about proper citation practice (the library and UW-ACE can help a great deal here); connect with them as a person so they will be more likely to come to us if they are experiencing problems rather than to consider cheating; clarify our expectations regarding collaboration on assignments and keep those clear messages coming; and follow through with reporting to the Associate Dean of our Faculty any violation of academic integrity we or our TAs come across.

“If we do not follow through, we run the risk of transmitting to our students the idea that doing honest work is not important.”

Her article in the newsletter notes that the rate of reported incidents of academic misconduct “has recently increased, both for undergraduate and graduate students. . . . And there are reasons to believe that these figures are an underestimate of the degree to which our students engage in academically dishonest behaviour.

“Self-report survey data reveal rates far in excess of these – more in the range of 25-50%, depending on the infraction, for undergraduates. Furthermore, . . . many cases of academic misconduct that are brought to the attention of faculty members are not reported, as they always should be, to the Associate Deans.”

Her conclusion: “There is lots to be done here to improve our culture of academic integrity, but I believe we’re moving in the right direction and at a pace that has significantly picked up over the past few years. I believe it’s vital that we continue to increase the momentum, otherwise we will be left behind and it won’t be long before our good reputation will be at significant risk.”

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Faculty members leave for sabbatical

Here’s a list of some UW professors who are going on year-long sabbaticals that begin July 1. Their plans are as described in summaries submitted to the university’s board of governors, which has to approve all sabbatical leaves.

R. W. Oldford, statistics and actuarial science: I will be continuing and expanding my research activity in the areas of statistical foundations, cluster analysis, and quantitative programming environments. I will also renew and further develop research collaboration with genetic researchers on colon cancer.”

Richard Hughson, kinesiology: “The sabbatical will provide time for me to complete an analysis of data from a major collaborative study just completed in France and prepare manuscripts; have a flexible schedule required for our first space flight experiments happening in Russia in 2007; and initiate new collaborative efforts with colleagues in London, Ontario, to access magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study blood flow and metabolism.”

Paul J. Schellenberg, combinatorics and optimization: “I plan to spend much of my sabbatical in Waterloo, continuing my research studies on the existence of combinatorial designs. I want to become more involved in research activities of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. This will require significant reading and study. Finally, I plan to work with my colleagues in the department to make revisions to course notes for Math 239 and ECE 103.”

Frank Tompa, computer science: “The sabbatical leave will be used to begin writing a textbook on XML (co-authored with Professor Airi Salminen, University of Jyväskälä) and to collaborate on research in the area of database integration with Professor Renée Miller and Professor Nick Koudas, University of Toronto.”

Ellsworth LeDrew, geography: “With funding from the Global Environment Facility of the World Bank, I will participate in collaborative research on remote sensing of submerged coral reefs for coastal management. I will also study non-stationary climate change processes related to Sea Ice variability in the Polar Basin.”

John L. Michela, psychology: “Concentrated attention will be given to two lines of research on innovation. Firstly, Dr. Michela will act as quantitative data analysis director of the international, SSHRC-supported MINE Project (Managing Innovation in the New Economy), based at École Polytechnique. Secondly, seven recent studies concerning leadership vision, from Dr. Michela’s graduate research group, will be written up in book form.”

Kenneth R. Vetzal, accountancy: “I will pursue research in two general areas: valuation of complex financial contracts (e.g. I will study the costs of providing payment guarantees to members of defined benefit payment plans); and analysis of corporate financial decisions (e.g. I will explore questions such as what types of securities firms should issue in order to finance new investments).”

Henry Wolkowicz, combinatorics and optimization: “I plan on spending most of my sabbatical in Waterloo with regular trips to work with Tamas Terlaky at McMaster, as well as trips to Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, and Austria. My major project at this time is writing a comprehensive book on Semidefinite Programming (joint with Levent Tuncel, Waterloo, Etienne DeKlerk, Tilburg, Franz Rendel, Klagenfurt; publisher SIAM). I am also involved in the organization of several conferences.”

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Now, if ever, come perfect days (Lowell)

My colleague Dana Evans is watching the weather forecast with heart in mouth this week. She's a key organizer of the UW Canada Day celebrations to be held Saturday on the north campus, and desperately hoping for the perfect day to bring out 60,000 or so people for games, music, food, an arts and crafts fair and other fun in the sun, with fireworks to follow when night falls. Right now it's looking pretty good: warm but not hot, and no more than "scattered" showers. Canada Day activities start at 2 p.m., with the lead children's performer, Eric Nagler, taking the main stage at 5 p.m., and Matthew Barber and the Union Dues performing for the adults at 9 p.m. I'll have a more extensive rundown of the Canada Day agenda in tomorrow's Daily Bulletin.

The local branch of high-tech firm Navtech Inc. has announced that it will move its offices to the newly opened Accelerator Centre in the north campus Research and Technology Park. “The move,” says the company’s news release, “is part of the preparations for a continuation of the significant growth Navtech has achieved in recent years Several years of organic growth and the recent acquisition of European Aeronautical Group (EAG) have increased Navtech’s revenue six-fold since 2002. 85 of Navtech’s growing global workforce of 250 is located in its corporate head office in Waterloo, including software development, sales and marketing and customer support. ‘We are thrilled to be in such a progressive building,’ said David Strucke, Navtech’s president. 'We are committed to investment in the Waterloo region'." Navtech creates and supports “superior flight operations software and services for airlines. Navtech’s product portfolio includes aeronautical charts, navigation data, flight planning, crew planning, runway analysis, and weight & balance systems.”

Tomorrow brings the last chance to suggest a staff member for one of this year's Special Recognition Awards, which will be presented in the fall. It'll be the third year for the awards. The program provides about 250 awards to non-union staff members annually, each involving a $1,000 one-time bonus payment. Awards are intended for "staff who make UW a great place to work every day by consistently demonstrating the use of the Basic Principles for the UW Workplace". Nominations are welcomed from the individual's manager, but also from other staff as well as students, faculty and even people outside the university. Details -- and a nomination form -- are available on a special web site.

Robert Ryan (right) will officially retire July 1 after 16 years as a faculty member in UW's department of French studies. A Dalhousie graduate with a doctorate from France's University of Aix-en-Provence, Ryan taught at the Nova Scotia Teachers College before coming to UW. He is a linguistics specialist, interested particularly in the Acadian speech of Atlantic Canada, as well as the teaching of French, and was the winner of a Distinguished Teacher Award in 2003.

The Eng-e-News electronic newsletter reports that Rick Haldenby, director of the School of Architecture, has been invested as a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. "Haldenby was also named Chair of the Council of Canadian University Schools of Architecture and a member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada."

Also: "Keith Peiris, a Waterloo Engineering student in nanotechnology engineering, received one of Canada's Top 20 Under 20 Awards earlier this month. The award recognized outstanding innovation and leadership and achievement. At age 11, Peiris started his own web development company, Cyberteks Design. Since its founding in 1999, Cyberteks has attracted many high profile clients across North America including the Atlanta Thrashers, McDonalds Restaurants of Canada, Rogers Television, Amtelecom, Siskind's Sports Management and Siskind’s Franchise Law."

CAR

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