An interesting side area to much of the work I do has involved thinking about academic integrity policies and how fit they are for the future. This is work conducted alongside other very qualified members of the field, including Irene Glendinning, Sandie Dann, Michael Draper and Robin Crockett.
I travelled to Leeds to talk about our thoughts on how we address student use of sites for question and answer sharing, joined remotely by several other members of the team. The presentation took place at the first Academic Integrity in the Law School Conference, so several examples had a legal slant to them.
You can see the slides I used below. They are also on my SlideShare account).
The main take home message from the presentation is that most universities and places of higher education do need to review their policies and check that these areas are considered. We came up with a whole series of prompts for them to use, which you can see on slide 12, covering training, intellectual property, copyright, assignment security, penalties and employment related issues.
But as the slide suggest, the whole situation is far from simple and there are many more complex areas which need to be thought about. If anyone would like to consult with us on these issues in relation to their own institutions, do drop me or the other team members a message.