As knowledge grows, so it fragments into ever smaller specialisms.    What was once a single subject, say chemistry, splits into organic, inorganic and physical.    These in turn split into subdisciplines: electrochemistry, molecular chemistry, protein or organometallic chemistry, and so on.    Sometimes the subtleties of these distinctions are so arcane as to lost even on the cognoscenti:   I still don’t understand the difference between physical chemistry and chemical physics, despite a lengthy immersion in one (or the other, I was never sure which).

A new journal is often the catalyst for such splitting:   a campfire around which participating professionals can come together and share notes.    So the sighting of a new campfire is a reliable sign that a fresh area of investigation has been identified, and those involved are seeking to establish a new discipline.

The International Journal for Educational Integrity (IJEI) is just such a campfire.    Launched late last year, “with a sense of synergistic closure”, no less, Volume 1 Number 1 is now online.

My first thought was: is there enough real material for such a journal?    And only time will tell.    But the bits in issue one (one “invited contribution” and four “articles”) fall into two types.   

Two of the articles tend towards arcania, if not actual pretentiousness.    One “draws on poststructuralist theory to critique what [the author] sees as underlying racism at the heart of the commodification of tertiary education”.    Another suggests that “the development of writer identity needs to be seen as part of the ongoing epistemological negotiations that occur between students and lecturers as they struggle to construct desired meanings across texts”. I avoided both; I’ve seen that kind of thing before.

The other two articles were turned more towards reality, and less towards esoterica.    One explores the kinds of penalties universities should impose for “breaches of academic regulations” and argues for a more reliable, realistic and consistent approach.    The other discusses the types of guidance which can be given to students for whom English is not their first language to help overcome some of the issues of plagiarism.   

Best of all (as one might hope) is the “invited contribution”: “Cheating among college and university students: A North American perspective” by Donald McCabe.

He looks at the different types of cheating that go on, displays survey results to show how widespread they are, and suggests what might be done about them.

Milder forms of cheating, such as copying from each other, pinching the odd few sentences off the internet without declaring the source, working collaboratively on projects that are intended to be individual work and so on, are quite common.    In some cases, almost half of the undergraduates questioned admitted to infringements.

But then I’m not surprised.    I did it, at school and at university.    Indeed, who didn’t?    And, after all, such behaviour is far more damaging to assessment than it is to learning.

Alas, such views are unfashionable, and Professor McCabe takes a much more mainstream if not actually self-righteous view of the need to stamp out dishonesty.

But it’s a useful reference source on the subject.    And given the growing concern over plagiarism, in particular, the journal may yet have a flourishing future.

Source: IJEI