Events

Academic Integrity vs Quarantine

By sitemanager | May 8, 2020

Since March 15, 2020, the SAIUP Team has started working remotely. It does not mean thought that it has changed the pace of the project running. Despite a new format of our work, the number of people attending SAIUP events has grown significantly. As Ukrainian education has faced a new challenge – transferring the learning and teaching process at all levels into an online format, SAIUP has come to an idea of going online with webinars to help educators deal with the challenges.

Thousands of faculty representatives all across Ukraine have stuck with the problems of adjusting various learning events into an online mode. We do not even  mention multiple opportunities for students to resort to cheating and approach education as a formality in this “regime” of studying. Having established a pool of dedicated and experienced consultants, SAIUP launched a series of online events called SAIUP Webinars on a Couch. We have already run ten webinars, covering a wide range of general and specific topics related to academic integrity. Academic integrity in sciences, plagiarism in papers, advising on how to organize various learning events, including exams, online, tips on academic writing as well as sharing stories of academic integrity success by SAIUP-participating universities – all these topics were covered by the hosts of SAIUP Webinars on a Couch. 

SAIUP continues to partake in the events run by our partners and colleagues. In collaboration with IREX, the SAIUP team conducted two webinars for high school and university administrators on academic integrity policies. We continue to attend conferences and panels we are invited to. Earlier this month SAIUP Coordinator Taras Tymochko presented at the online-discussion “Academic Integrity in New Ukrainian School” initiated by Sumy State University. Recently, SAIUP Specialist Yana Chapailo delivered a speech at the Fifth International Conference for Students and Young Scientist “Motivation in the system of academic integrity”, initiated by Bukovinian State Medical University.

All the online events are available on SAIUP YouTube Channel for watching afterward. Within the quarantine period, the SAIUP YouTube channel collected 22 100 views and got 700  more subscriptions. Figures speak louder than words: in less than two months we have had 14 online events, around 3600 direct participants, and about 20000 views; 6074  followers on official Facebook page and almost 3000 subscriptions on YouTube channel.

As a part of our online campaign, we have published 3 issues of Academic Integrity Bulletin, covering topics of distance learning and academic integrity, teaching remotely, and improving evaluation quality. Each of the issues  is available online – Issue 9, Issue 8, Issue 7.

In the upcoming weeks our online activity will be enriched by running a series of short YouTube videos on academic writing. These video clips aim at providing students with practical instructions on writing different kinds of academic papers. We are recording 6 episodes on writing an argumentative essay, scientific essay, self-editing, theses for a conference presentation, oral presentation, creating a list of references respectively. These short videos will feature SAIUP experts and consultants on academic writing.

As a famous quote says, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching”. We sincerely hope that the test of quarantine will help all educators and students value authentic learning more than ever, realizing that the core of it lies in sticking to academic integrity practices despite the format of education.

To find the collection of our quarantine webinars follow the link: https://saiup.org.ua/vebinari-akademichna-dobrochesnist

Also subscribe to our Youtube channel – Проект SAIUP Академічна доброчесність