Four Decision Scenarios in Academic Integrity 1.3 2006/10/01 17:26:42 GMT-5 2007/03/02 09:52:30.873 US/Central Jose A. Cruz-Cruz cruz.jose@adem.uprm.edu William J. Frey wfrey@uprm.edu Jose A. Cruz-Cruz cruz.jose@adem.uprm.edu William J. Frey wfrey@uprm.edu Academic Integrity Decision Making EAC-Toolkit Ethics This module modifies the decision making format published earlier in Connexions under the title, "Ethical Decision Making in Engineering." Students are presented with four cases involving challenges to academic integrity, Treasures from Troy, The Free Rider?, A Different Kind of Recycling, and Teachers Fight Back. Each of these decision scenarios provides a narrative that is terminated at a point of decision. Students are required to make a decision to bring the narrative to completion. To help focus matters, each decision scenario is followed by solution alternatives. Students are invited to evaluate and rank these alternatives in terms of three ethics tests (reversibility, harm/beneficence, and publicity). Another test, a feasibility test, invites students to think carefully about whether their ethical solution can be implemented and what kind of obstacles are likely to arise in its implementation. Each decision scenario/solution alternatives/test description set is followed by a solution evaluation matrix, a table where students discuss and evaluate the alternatives in terms of their ethics and feasibility. The final page of this activity provides a short history of each scenario. This module is being developed as a part of an NSF-funded project, "Collaborative Development of Ethics Across the Curriculum Resources and Sharing of Best Practices," NSF SES 0551779.

Module Introduction This module provides all the tools for practicing decision making in the area of academic integrity. Four cases, Treasures from Troy, The Free Rider?, A Different Kind of Recycling, and Teachers Fight Back, raise issues common in academic integrity and invite you to make and justify decisions in this area. Following each scenario is a list of possible solutions. Your job is to evaluate each solution and then rank it in terms of the ethics and feasibility tests that are listed at the bottom of the page. On the page that follows each scenario, you will find a "Solution Evaluation Matrix." Here each solution is repeated in rows that intersect with columns headed by the ethics and feasibility tests. Complete the table with the results of your evaluation of the alternatives using the ethics and feasibility tests. For each alternative you will reach an overall, global decision that seeks to capture its sum total of ethical and feasibility characteristics. On the basis of this table, you should be able to reach and justify a solution to the problem raised in the scenario.The tests provide you with tools to evaluate and rank solution alternatives. They also deliver the means of justifying your decision to others. The best solution is the one that comes closest to integrating the ethics and feasibility tests without trading any of them off. In this way, making decisions with implications for academic integrity resembles designing in business or engineering. In design problems, you seek to integrate and balance client specifications over background constraints. In solving ethical problems, your goal is to integrate the ethical specifications (the ethics tests) and then integrate them over background constraints such as time, cost, competing individual and organizational interests, and so forth.

Gray Matters in Academic Integrity Four Decision Scenarios for Academic Integrity

EAC Toolkit Metaknowledge

Learning Objectives

EAC/ABET Matrix ABET Learning Objevtives and UPRM Moral Objectives

Module Activities The Gray Matters activities are emmbedded in the exercise, see the module core.

Assessment / Assurance of Learning This module can be assesed by using the Muddiest Point technique, see Supplemental Links to the left

Module-Background Information

Sources for Cases Case 1 has been developed by William Frey, Chuck Huff, and José Cruz for their book, Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics. This book is currently in draft stage and is under contract with Jones and Bartlett Publishing Company. Cases 2 and 3 were developed by UPRM faculty teams from the College of Engineering during workshops held for the ABET 2001 Steering Committee and the Department of Industrial Engineering. These workshops took place April 6, 2001 and May 14, 2001. Case 4 has been modified from “The Plagiarism Detector” written by Moshe Kam. It can be found at the beginning of the ethics chapter in Practical Engineering Design, edited by Maja Bystrom and Bruce Eisenstein. Moshe Kam. “The Plagiarism Detector”, in Practical Engineering Design, edited by Maja Bystrom and Bruce Eisenstein. Boca Raton, FLA: CFC Press, 2005: 27-28.

Module Format Module format is based on CNX module “Ethical Decision Making in Engineering”, see Example Links.

Module Use This module will be used in an activity for the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Center for Faculty Development.

Pedagogical Commentary To be completed after module is tested in the CEP activity

Supplementary Information Instructor Manual and Textboxes are being prepared for module

References and Links See Supplementary Links and OnlineEthics.Org