Starting next semester, Memorial University will be introducing a mandatory course on academic integrity for all first-year students.
The three-hour “interactive” online course will be a crash course on cheating in universities, and how to avoid it, according to the university’s website.
The course is designed to be a “quick and thorough review” of Memorial’s policies on academic integrity. Students must finish the course with a mark of at least 80 per cent to continue studying at Memorial.
The course applies to new students, but is also mandatory for current students who break the school’s integrity guidelines.
The move comes in light of new data that shows an increase in cheating at Canadian universities. A study from the University of Guelph said 7,000 students were caught plagiarizing or cheating on exams by their universities between 2011 and 2012, according to CBC.
However, the study stated that these numbers are only the number of students who are actually caught cheating.
Carleton University had a high percentage of students disciplined in the 2011-2012 school year, with 2.6 per cent of students – 607 in total – being reprimanded for cheating.
Carleton psychology student Jay Wilscomb said he doesn’t believe an integrity course would be necessary for Carleton students, since he thinks professors and teaching assistants do a good enough job informing students of the consequences.
“If you plagiarize, it’ll ruin your academic career,” Wilscomb said. “I know that because it’s been told to me countless times.”
Journalism students see this firsthand, Wilscomb said.
“Journalists get in trouble in the news sometimes for plagiarizing the work of other journalists,” Wilscomb said. “This acts as a deterrent for a lot of people trying to go into that profession, and our school is known for this program.”
