Oberlin's Honor Code Weathers Changing Times in Country and on Campus Honor Committees Plan Educational Outreach to Reinvigorate Awareness of Code by Anne C. Paine | photos by Rebecca Lammons '06 March 24, 2003 The Library Lends a Hand Cheating today is easier than ever due to the Internet. With vast amounts of information online, plagiarism is as simple as a cut-and-paste click of the mouse. "Students have stopped using traditional sources and are doing research from their desktops," says Megan Mitchell, reference librarian and electronic services coordinator. The Internet is a large part of the plagiarism problem, but Oberlin's librarians are striving to make it part of the solution. The library's web pages include clear examples of how to prepare proper citations according to the conventions of several major style guides. Information on preventing plagiarism for students and faculty members is compiled in the online notes from the library's January 2002 workshop "Preventing, Detecting, and Dealing with Plagiarism."     Maggie Raife, co-chair of SHC Reference librarians are available more than 70 hours per week, either in person or through ChatRef, an online, real-time interactive reference service involving librarians from some 40 institutions in the OhioLINK network. Three different electronic book services are accessible to dorm-room researchers; all allow students to set up personal bookshelves, bookmark pages, and make annotations. More than 15,000 records in the OBIS catalog are for electronic books that are part of the netLibrary service. Library patrons can also find these books by logging on to netLibrary.com. The OhioLINK Electronic Reference Books Collection (accessible through the link on the library's home page) contains special-topic reference books, encyclopedias, biographical collections, and guides, and Books24x7.com (library.books24x7.com) provides business and information-technology reference e-books. Despite these voluminous online resources, some information is still available only in old-fashioned books. To help students find the best resources, the reference librarians visit numerous courses each semester to discuss information literacy, particularly courses in the First-Year Seminar Program. They also schedule appointments for personal consultations through the "Ask a Librarian" button on the library's home page. "We really want students to ask us questions," says reference librarian and instruction coordinator Jessica Grim. A Living Document Nothing devised by humans is perfect, and Oberlin's honor code is no exception. By giving students primary responsibility for academic integrity, it also places them in the potentially sticky situation of having to enforce Oberlin's academic values. "Nobody wants to be the bad guy—not the students, not the professors, not the Student Honor Committee—but the alternative is an authoritarian system where the teacher walks around checking people's work as they take exams. I think a self-governing system is better," says Raife. The code also provides great advantages for faculty members and students. "I find that the honor code is liberating," says Inglis. "I don't have to be there during exams trying to catch people. I can trust them. The code frees me to teach. I'm not so much the enforcer as the teacher. And it can only help students if they know that their professors respect their academic work and trust them. The honor code absolutely demonstrates that respect and trust." Ultimately, the honor code is the foundation of Oberlin's academic mission. "My hope is to find ways to make academic integrity an institutional issue, and not one that is carried on the backs of a few students on the Student Honor Committee," says Jackson-Davidson. "Every single one of us is affected by the issue of academic integrity, because we're an academic community." Related Links: The Honor Code and Honor System OAM Fall 2001 story: "The Business of Cheating Stirs New Solutions" Center for Academic Integrity Library home page Go back to page 1 | 2 | 3