October 2000 

FACCC is coordinating a Nov. 10 workshop on Academic Integrity.

Your responses will be posted here as received, and may be used in other FACCC publications.

Please e-mail responses to Communications Director Katherine Martinez, k7martinez@aol.com, by Oct. 31 (use the subject "October Question").

Answers received: 

• Your answer could be here

• 10/9/00 rby2oz@impulse.net (Robert B. Yoshioka)
  
  In the past 10 years, my approach to academic integrity and student evaluation has lead me to design and utilize examinations for which
  students cannot study and with which they cannot cheat. How is this possible? Easy. I create examinations that are based on what I teach,
  but not on the content of the class, per se. In addition, I encourage students to caucus with each other BEFORE sitting down to frame their
  own responses. I encourage them to use the textbook, any other materials, including the internet and even let them take the exams home,
  if they choose.
  
  I ask students to THINK, and to set their thoughts down in English! The good ones prevail the others languish and do what they are best at
  doing...little or nothing, and their grades reflect the level of their work.
  
  The examinations are fun to construct, fun to administer and, hopefully, fun to take. If one removes the appearance of cheating, then one cannot
  cheat, right?

• 10/5/00 gianders@floyd.santarosa.edu (Gary I. Anderson) — Yes, academic standards have gone downhill. At this college, for over five years, "A" has been the modal grade across the curriculum--general education classes, vocational, avocational, remedial.
  
  I suspect and hope that there are departments, and perhaps even colleges, where standards are maintained. It is probably easier in required, as opposed to elective, courses. Standards will be higher when the students answer to higher authority, such as a licensure examination. They will be higher when faculty within a department or a college have a shared vision, where there is administrative leadership and support, and where the college fosters discussion among faculty about academic standards.
  
  Standards might be higher if funding was at least partly quality-based rather than quantity-based. They might be higher if there was a return to some aspects of credentialing, such as pre-service training in testing and grading. They might be higher if the rewards of teaching were sufficient to attract some of the more talented graduates in the various disciplines, who have had personal experience with high standards.
  

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