Evening all,
After some time refilling the energy cup, and patiently waiting for the galaxy to provide me with sufficient fuel to write again, I have come across something which has so sufficiently angried up my blood that I spent an hour today recovering my account details so I could post. A little humorous irony is that I had started a draft post with the title "Why are only academics on misconduct panels?" You'll see why this is amusing shortly.
So, as you may all know, I have some views on academic integrity, professional staff and the professionalism with which we undertake our work. Luckily for me, the Australian Association of University Professors (hereafter, the poobahs) decided to open their mouths and removed all doubt that they are fools, at least in the regard they spoke. I refer to this pronuciamento from them today, and I'm going to both quote liberally from it and, as the title of the post might suggest, land some shells in the foxhole they've burrowed themselves into.
In truth, their missive didn't start well with the title "Academic Integrity undermined by non-academic management in Australian universities: A threat to students and society." Being a non-academic who has, by most accounts, done the opposite of undermining academic integrity, I take quite a bit of offense at people who believe that in order to make a solid contribution to academic integrity you require "profound knowledge of the specific respective histories of disciplinary content, their development and change over time." This is simply untrue. The problem here is that the writer/s are living in the past, and are therefore ignorant of the present. That's the best slant I can put on it, because otherwise it's just an exercise in monstrous egotism. I've been handling academic integrity cases of rising severity for nearly 15 years. The "disciplinary content" referred to is certainly useful, but only for simple and low-level cases. Certainly not for the most serious cases. Where we need discipline-specific content, we ask for it and assess the evidence. That's called evidence gathering. Not sure if they've come across the concept.
Moving on, I managed to get through a few more sentences before this:
Within the organisation of a university, it is academics themselves who must adjudicate in matters that violate academic integrity.
No reasoning, no evident skillset, just a wave of the hand. And I get it- you've told themselves that your PhDs confer on you not just academic standing, but also a world of skills for which you have received no training whatsoever. Teaching? That's a big X Governance? X People management? X Budget? X With regard to academic integrity, bungling amateurism has contributed to a tsunami of cheating. In the context the unmitigated gall to claim that having professional staff responsible for academic integrity is a "threat" to society is pretty mindblowing, I have to say.
Some non-academic university managers in Australia, however, are now proposing that those in non-academic roles be tasked with assessing student academic misconduct cases. That is, administrative or general staff, who are untied by the stringent scholarly standards acquired through research experience and tertiary teaching, and who lack postgraduate academic qualifications, could become academic integrity officers. Such a proposal would see academic expertise removed from the academic integrity process, meaning that unqualified staff would be making decisions about a student’s academic progress, ultimately undermining the whole process. The creation and elevation of these non-academic roles appear to be the result of university managers’ lack of academic training. Therefore, such proposals undermine not only academic quality, but also a university’s integrity and thus their academic credibility.
Were the professoriate intending to be insulting here, or are they untied from reality? Newsflash- I've been investigating and deciding the most serious academic integrity breaches possible for a decade or so, without your wizard's hat or a postgrad credential (which does not exist in our space). The sector agrees that I do it well, as does the national regulator. The are plenty of folks out there who do the same. In fact, the greatest advances in practical handling of academic integrity cases have been driven entirely by professional staff, from both an efficacy and a fairness standpoint. What I can say, and I hope I'm not repeating myself, is that purely academic handling of academic integrity cases has been a serious failure. Academic handling of academic integrity has given rise to huge risks to universities, and put at risk the social license of universities to operate. It was not until people like me and my team were employed to do this job properly that progress was made on contract cheating, for example. Prior to that proven cases were so rare as to be exceptional, but the scale of the problem remained invisible, except insofar as students told us they were doing it (to give full credit where it is due to our academic research colleagues). Apparently, the professors view our work as "another assault upon the academic quality and standards of our universities." They go on to claim that no action would be taken to address "alleged lack of academic integrity both because [we] do not understand the ethical implications and also in the interests of ‘protecting the brand’ of the university." As you can imagine, this is news to me. While I hold views about the role senior leaders at universities have played re: academic integrity, it's also fair to point out that none have ever tried to hold us back from doing our job to the highest standards possible, and as many might attest- I'm not easily put off. And it's also entirely accurate to say that people who do this job professionally, full time, have a much deeper understanding of the ethical implications of this behaviour than those who play around in the shallow end of the kiddies pool.
During my time dealing with academic integrity matters I've seen senior academics scream at students, threaten students, accuse them of committing the "crime" of copy and paste plagiarism (this student was threatened with a police report). By contrast, my team and I have not only shone lights in dark places and contributed to an effective and fair response to academic integrity issues, but also contributed to academic knowledge of the meaning of academic integrity. Essentially, this missive is a nothing more than an ignorant display of academic classism, a circling of the wagons by the most privileged people in academia. And I'm not having it, my team and I have suffered too much shit to swallow this.
Until next time,
KM
Professionals are professionals! What more needs saying!
That's almost at a piss-take level of bullshit. Coming from the source, not at all surprising - their 'organisation' is a complete nothing-burger non-entity. 35 years in the game and I've never met a member or ever had that group come up in conversation. I suspect that membership is a tell, in fact, and not a flattering one. After all, they are prepared to put shit like that out to public view. Of course, they're not actually talking about themselves being involved, unless there's some ego-stroking importance-signalling on offer. Allow me to extend my apologies on behalf of the sane academic community, most of whom would readily admit that they are not the best option for this kind of work.
What an utterly terrible article, more ego than sense. Their assertion that the Academic with knowledge of the unit is best placed to investigate integrity is like suggesting that the person who gets robbed is the best person to investigate the crime as they know the most about their possessions, and not the Police who are specifically trained to investigate. Though I do agree with their claim that integrity should not be investigated by those without experience - unfortunately, that would exclude the academics who know a lot about their subject but have no training in investigation.
Preach Kane. As an academic that manages some aspects of allegations of academic integrity it chills my blood how often a colleague botches an investigation or undermines natural justice in the pursuit of 'justice'. Having professional staff that specialise in this area is of massive benefit to the academy and our efforts to build a culture of academic integrity.