academic honesty in ib

Academic Honesty(academic integrity)

Honesty – the quality or condition of having or displaying strong moral principles; fair dealing; truthfulness; integrity

- Oxford English Dictionary, 2017

Most of the following text is adapted or taken from IB publications:

• Are you completing your IB assignments honestly (2012)

• Academic honesty in the IB educational context (2014)

• Academic Honesty in the Diploma Programme pamphlet

Academic Honesty(academic integrity)

IB learners strive to be principled:

• We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere.

• We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Academic Misconduct(academic dishonesty)

• Academic misconduct is a behaviour that results in a student gaining an unfair advantage in one or more assessment components

• or a behaviour that disadvantages other students

Academic Misconduct(breaches of IB regulations)

• Plagiarism

• Collusion

• Taking unauthorized material into an exam

• Stealing exam materials

• Disruptive behaviour during an exam

• Disclosure of information about the content of an exam paper within 24 hours of the exam

PlagiarismPlagiarism is defined as the representation, intentionally or unwittingly, of the ideas, words or work of another person without proper, clear and explicit acknowledgment.

Of all cases investigated during exam sessions (on average):

• 52% concern plagiarism

3 - 4% of work randomly sampled is plagiarised

CollusionCollusion is defined as supporting academic misconduct by another student, for example allowing one’s work to be copied or submitted for assessment by another.


• 25% concern collusion

Exam Misconduct

Examples of misconduct during an IB exam include:

• taking unauthorized material into an exam (whether the student uses it or not)

• behaviour that disrupts the exam or may distract other students

• communicating with another student during the exam.


• 12% concern misconduct during an exam

Andrew Cartlidge – IBDP Coordinator

Exam Misconduct

How you can be caught

• Invigilators

• Seating plans & written notes on all activities during the exam are taken

• Review of exam papers to check for possible plagiarism / collusion / undue assistance

• Software to spot plagiarism from the internet

• Cactus 64 – software to compare candidates’ work

How can you & your teachers check your academic honesty?

What does a Turnitin reportlook like?

Caught!

In May 2015

• One candidate had 40 pages of economic notes on his smartwatch: he can never sit an IB exam again

• ToK essays – there were 19 hits across candidates: they failed ToK and therefore their Diploma

Caught!

In May 2016

• 1.15% of candidates were investigated; 0.33% received a penalty (488 candidates)

• One twitter case and one on Facebook discussing the English A paper within 24 hours of exam – students got an ‘n’

Academic Misconduct(academic dishonesty)

• It’s unfair

• It’s unethical

• It’s unprincipled

• It’s wrong

Reflection

How many times have you submitted work using material from the internet and not stated where it came from?

Did you plagiarize on purpose?

Or were you just ignorant? Does that make it okay?

But I didn’t know…

The IB expects students to know

• what is and is not acceptable behaviour in the exam room

• how to cite material originally developed by others

• A student’s intent cannot therefore be taken into account when investigating alleged misconduct (“I didn’t know” is no excuse)

What you must do

• Make clear which words, ideas, images and works are not your own.

• Give credit for copied, adapted and paraphrased material.

• If you paraphrase an idea—that is if you restate it, but alter the exact wording—you must still cite that source.

What you must do

• You must cite the source of images, maps, charts, tables, data sets, musical compositions, movies, computer source codes and song lyrics—any material that is not your own.

• Make clear where the borrowed material starts and finishes; this can be done by using quotation marks, using an “opening” indication and a closing page number.

What you must do

• All sources cited in the text must also be listed in the bibliography (or reference list / list of works cited)

• and all sources listed in the bibliography must be cited in the text.

MLA Referencing

academic honesty in ib

Education