While many schools across the country have been using honor codes to regulate cheating, Boston University Provost Dennis Berkey said BU does not have an honor code and has no plans to institute one.
An honor code requires students to place their signatures on their work saying they did not cheat or take another person’s ideas.
‘We expect and assume that every member of our academic community (faculty and staff) will act honorably at all times,’ Berkey wrote in an email. ‘That expectation and corresponding commitment need not be restated periodically as is done in formal honor code systems.’
BU’s schools and colleges each have individual academic conduct codes, distributed to students in class. These codes detail what constitutes plagiarism and discusses the penalties for such violations.
BU, unlike many other colleges and universities across the country, does not have an explicit honor code requiring a binding signature by the student. By signing such a document, students could be held to the academic standard of not cheating in a class without a professor being present during an exam, and would agree to turn in students who they saw cheating.
Some schools require students to sign honor codes either when they matriculate, like at Georgetown University, or before submitting each major paper or exam, which is the practice at the University of Maryland and the University of Virginia.
Karen Bohlin, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at the School of Education, said there needed to be certain instances for which an honor code could work.
‘An honor code is only effective … when a university embraces it and makes it a part of the culture,’ Bohlin said.
‘In principle, [honor codes] should help if they’re challenging students to live by a higher ideal,’ she said. ‘[Honor codes] break down when they’re more punitive than inspiring.’
According to the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, studies show the occurrence of serious cheating is approximately one-third lower on campuses which have honor codes, than on those which do not.
Honor codes are aimed at convincing the student body to value its own personal and community honor.
Students are aware of the current standards because professors emphasize proper academic conduct, according to Melissa Bease, a College of Fine Arts and College of Arts and Sciences junior. However, she said she believes students simply choose not to follow them.
Bease said an honor code could work at BU ‘if people had morals.’
The University of Maryland has toughened up its honor codes in recent years by including other steps to discourage cheating, according to its website. The website states the university would lower the standard of proof for cheating, publish cheating incidents without names in the campus newspaper, and use a special grade of ‘XF’ on a transcript to indicate failure due to cheating.
The CAS Academic Conduct Code, similar to those of other schools and colleges, gives a wide range of possible outcomes for cheating. These range from ‘no penalty’ to expulsion, which are determined by a committee.
Ariel Zilber, a College of Communication senior, said he didn’t believe an honor code would be sufficient at BU.
‘If the opportunity presents itself, it’s too good [for cheaters] to pass up,’ Zilber said.
He suggested more proctors in exams would stop cheating more effectively than an honor code could.