Researching Grants and Awards

About Finding Funding…

The previous blog entries have helped me to develop a theory and set of best practices for approaching academic dishonesty and I have built a list of sources for continuing my education about the issue. Now the only question that remains is “How do I fund a professional development collection and an expansion of library services that would allow me to utilize the knowledge I have gained?” My goal for this final component of the project was to generate enough funding to start my own (theoretical) “ethical information use” program.

This is the end of my research journey and this will be the final blog post. However, if you are interested in reading more you can check out my personal reflections about this entire experience by clicking on the “Final Project Reflections” tab in the menu above.

Key Highlights:

Funding Source #1

Photo from the grant website of Carroll Preston Baber.

Grant Name: Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant

Grant Amount: Up to $3,000

Grant Website: http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/awards/55/apply

The Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant was created to fund research projects that answer “vital” questions in librarianship and are focused on the improvement of service delivery to any type of population. Understanding why students cheat and how to discourage this practice is central to the job duties of an instruction librarian. The practice of cheating is a universal issue affecting colleges worldwide.  

Funding Source #2

Image from the grant website.

Award Name: ProQuest Innovation in College Librarianship Award

Award Amount: $3,000 award in one lump sum; this award is given out on an annual basis.

Award Website: http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/awards/338/apply

This award provides funding to librarians to support their work on continuing projects or recognize ones that have already taken place. The RFP does not specify how the librarian is to use the funding once it is received. Instead, its intention is to honor librarians that have improved library services for undergraduates or faculty members using innovative measures. This would be the perfect award for libraries that are digitizing their information literacy courses or are finding new ways of discouraging cheating and encourage library use with technology. Though the funding would not be used to start a project, it could be used to expand one, continue its momentum, or replace funding that was reallocated for the purposes of the project. 

Funding Source #3

Image from the grant website.

Grant Name: Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries

Grant Amount: $10,000 to $25,000

Grant Website: http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=19

The intention of the grant is support the testing out of innovative ideas that intend to solve common problems that libraries face. The proposal is intentionally broad to allow for many solutions to many different issues. However, it is stressed that the problems applicants present must be generalizable to other libraries of that type, rather than one specific to a single institution. Likewise, the funding agency seeks innovations that can feasibly be applied to many different libraries, rather than solutions that are proprietary in nature. The intent is to encourage new ideas and solutions that benefit the field as a whole.

Funding Source #4

Image from the grant website.

Grant Database’s Name: Grants.gov

Database Website: http://www.grants.gov/

Grants.gov offers a wide variety of grants from various national and state agencies. Users can choose to search for open grants, closed grants, or archived grants and can search by the type of agency or funding category. Grants.gov is free to browse unlike other grant databases (like Foundation Center) that require a subscription. Additionally, many of the grants on the database require that users apply through the Grants.gov interface, rather than through the parent institution.

Brief Reflections:

Funding. The very word that strikes fear into the hearts of even the most steadfast of librarians. Coming from a public library background, I was honestly not sure where to begin to look for funding in an academic setting. I had done a bit of grant research for another course this semester for a public library and after having a bit of difficulty, I was told by one of my librarian contacts that some systems are not allowed to apply for outside funding, but rather must take what they can get from the general fund they are allotted each year. I wondered if the same could be true for college libraries. Were academic libraries limited to the funds granted by their institutions?

I had extreme difficulty finding a single grant that would support academic honesty efforts. Evidence was beginning to support my theory that college libraries could be limited as to what they were allowed to apply for. When looking on the Association of College and Research Libraries website, I noticed all of the funding was in the form of an award, rather than a grant. These awards were for recognition of excellent programs already in place and were not intended to fund new research or services.

When searching for “information literacy” grants, the only thing I could seem to find were grants issued from the library to professors and students on campus. I was unable to find any grants of this type that were being issued to libraries instead.

It was a very frustrating process. Eventually, I just settled for including grants that had vague premises and could apply to any topic. It is also possible that the reason I did not find any directly applicable grants is because preserving academic standards is often viewed as part of an academic librarian’s regular job duties, rather than a special program. Perhaps the fault was with my search terms. It is possible that not having an academic background, I was using the wrong terminology when attempting to find funding for academic honesty programs.

Whatever the case, it seems that in order to obtain funding for these types of programs, librarians must think “outside the box” and consider more general requests for proposals or find ways that their programs could be stretched to fit grants in other categories. Who knew that finding funding for such an important area of research would be so difficult? 

 
Discussion Questions:

How does your library find funding for ethics or information literacy programs? Is there a particular funding source that I am neglecting? If you were given funding to expand your efforts to promote academic honesty, what type of program would you conduct?

See the entire grant report behind the cut!

Exploring Academic Honesty Websites

About the Academic Honesty Collection (Part 2)…

Continuing with the collection development series (see the previous post for part 1), for this post I plan to cover electronic-based sources that provide guidance on the subject of academic integrity. Unlike the previous set of sources, the websites I have included in this segment are meant for a variety of different audiences, not just teachers and librarians. I selected one resource specifically for students because I liked the idea of having a user-friendly site to refer them to when they were doing coursework outside of the library. Another website I chose seemed to be the perfect fit for lesson planning. The remaining two sites I found were excellent places to discuss honesty ethics with like-minded scholars. Are there any websites or other electronic sources I may have missed that you feel would be a good fit for an academic honesty collection? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Key Highlights:

Website #1

Asia Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity (APFEI): http://apfei.edu.au/

The purpose of APFEI is to serve as a reference point for scholars interested in studying and preserving academic honesty at their institutions. The site has many informational resources for academics, including: a research journal, a discussion forum where scholars can discuss academic integrity topics with one another, a bibliography with reading recommendations, full access to previous conference materials, current case studies, and access to their unique, multi-disciplinary “Academic Integrity Standards” project, in which the association is attempting to create a standardized approach to forming academic honesty practices and policies.

Website #2

PlagiarismAdvice.org: http://plagiarismadvice.org/

This website is intended for individuals working in the education industry who are looking for practical advice surrounding plagiarism and information ethics. The webpage offers a variety of informational content such as a video webinar series, journal articles with advice for engaging students or creating well-written honesty policies, and teacher resources about assessment and cheating detection technology use.

Website #3

Plagiarism.org: http://www.plagiarism.org/

This website is intended for students or those who need to brush up on their citation skills. The site explains the basics of recognizing and preventing plagiarism in a series of easy-to-follow lessons. There is also an “Ask the Experts” section of the site where students have their copyright and plagiarism questions answered (for example, this month’s question is about what is considered “common knowledge” when writing a paper). The website also offers some additional resources like webcasts, additional helpful webpages, and news stories about academic honesty and current events.

Website #4

National Center for Professional and Research Ethics: Ethics Collaborative Online Resource Environment (Ethics CORE): https://nationalethicscenter.org

Ethics CORE is meant to serve as an online environment where members can post white papers, opinion pieces, encyclopedia entries, resource links, answers, and interactive lessons about topics within the area of research ethics (this includes academic honesty). The site is loosely monitored monthly to ensure only topical information is posted. Ethics CORE is meant to be a community-based group of resources that individuals can use in the classroom or as a place to turn to when attempting to solve complex ethical dilemmas via recommended best practices from scholars in the field.

Brief Reflections:

While I think that it is important to have a list of print-based sources to draw from, online sources are usually far cheaper (all of the ones I have included are free to access) and are updated more often. I also like the amount of interactivity that websites can have. Both the Ethics Core and APFEI sites have a forum where scholars from around the world can discuss solutions to complicated ethical problems together. This is part of the reason I chose to format my final project as a blog rather than, say, an informative presentation. I am hoping to prompt a discussion within the profession. I am looking forward to the experience and wisdom that other librarians can bring so that I may be able to form my own ethical opinion about how to deal with dishonesty in academia.

Discussion Questions:

Which of these websites do you think would be most useful to you in your everyday practices? Are there other web sources you use on a regular basis to help you answer ethical questions? Do you personally prefer print sources or web sources? Why?

See the entire website suggestions assignment below the cut!

Developing a Collection

About the Academic Ethics Collection (Part 1)…

Thus far in this ethics blog I have examined theories and influences that could explain student dishonesty, looked into current research about cheating deterrents, and consulted an academic librarian about her experiences with maintaining academic standards. Even having all of these to work from, I thought that perhaps it might be wise to develop my own professional development collection of sources that I could consult when honesty ethics issues came up in my career. In addition, I wanted to choose items that would complement workplace staff collections so that I could suggest their eventual funding to my library director. I hope you will find these sources interesting and enlightening as well!

For the next two blog posts, I will be featuring print and online materials that deal with academic honesty and are specifically written for librarians and educators. I chose these items based on their reviews, publisher, and author(s) (and you can find out more about these justifications below the cut). Let me know in the comments if you added any of them to your own collection or if you have items you would personally recommend on this subject.

Key Highlights:

Print Item #1

Lang, James. 2013. Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Cheating Lessons seeks to assist readers in understanding and addressing the problem of academic dishonesty at its core. Lang (2013) examines the deeper, underlying reasons behind why college students choose to cheat. By using his own research, established cognitive theories, and case studies, the author reveals ethical, psychological, and sociological motivators. Through his research, the author discovered that educational environments are often accidentally designed in such a way that encourages cheating. Through this understanding of planning flaws and hidden motivators, Lang provides a framework of intervention strategies that educators and librarians can use to take the incentive out of cheating.

 Print Item #2

Lampert, Lynn D. 2008. Combating Student Plagiarism: An Academic Librarian's Guide. Oxford: Chandos Publishing Limited.

Combating Student Plagiarism provides a practical approach to academic dishonesty that is geared specifically toward academic librarians. Unlike the first resource that takes an extensive look at theory, this text is more of a manual that identifies common cheating situations within the academic library and provides step-by-step solutions specifically for librarians based on research articles.

Item #3 – Serials Item

Journal of Academic Ethics. Netherlands: Springer. Accessed Feb. 6, 2015. http://link.springer.com/journal/10805.  

The Journal of Academic Ethics provides peer-reviewed articles about many ethical dilemmas facing scholars in academic environments. While the journal does not specifically cater to questions of academic honesty, over one hundred articles were found within the journal that addressed the concept of cheating and honesty policies. It is likely to prove invaluable to the librarian looking for professional development and guidance when dealing with difficult ethical situations.

Brief Reflections:

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the number of materials available on the subject of academic honesty. Many of them, (like Combating Student Plagiarism listed above,) provided a detailed list of best practices a librarian could use when dealing with honesty violations. While it is important to build a theory for your practices and consult mentors, I think it is just as important to keep up on ethics research and have a reference you can go to when conflicts do arise. As I have discovered throughout this process, academic honesty is a complicated issue! I want to be able to arm myself with as much knowledge as I can before starting my career. I think that it is also helpful to keep notes or a list of best practices that can be referred to from time to time. Thinking about ethics takes a conscious effort and I feel part of my duty as a future librarian is to ensure that my ethical stance does not conflict with delivering the best service I can to my patrons. I also feel that it is important to continue researching and reading. There are constantly new theories and research developments in the field of academic ethics. I hope I never stop learning! 

Discussion Questions:

Which of these sources did you find to be the most useful? Do you have any go-to sources you use frequently when making ethical decisions? How did you develop your own list of best practices? Did you consult a colleague, a theory, or a particular source?

See the entire collection suggestions paper behind the cut!

Interviewing an Ethical Librarian

About the Librarian…

So far in this blog series I have looked at the findings of researchers and waxed philosophical about psychological motivations. I have built a solid foundation for the theories behind why students plagiarize or cheat, but in order to apply it to the field I felt that an expert opinion was needed. I wanted to know how a librarian who was actually working with students on a daily basis dealt with academic dishonesty. Did she agree with the theories I had discovered? Did her approach match the conclusions I had made in previous postings?

To protect the privacy of the librarian I interviewed, I agreed to keep her name and institution anonymous. Thus, you will not be seeing a citation at the end of this particular post. Needless to say, I selected this librarian carefully based on the fact that her institution served distance education students. None of the previous sources I had examined explored the idea of academic dishonesty in online learning environments. I was curious to see if the librarian saw a difference in the number of integrity violations between her distance and on-campus students. If so, I was interested to see if she had any suggestions for maintaining honesty standards with online students.

Key Highlights:

An opinion that I found particularly intriguing (and potentially controversial) was the idea that faculty members can unintentionally encourage cheating through poor practices. The librarian cited the example of an instructor creating a PowerPoint presentation and using images to “liven” it up without citing the sources they were drawn from. Perhaps my favorite quote from the interview was “It is so easy not to set a good example, but librarians and teachers need to be mindful of always setting a good example in everything they produce” (personal communication 2015).

Under the question "What do you think are the three main ethical problems in academic librarianship?" my interviewee noted that one of the problems she felt that was most pressing in the academic realm was patron privacy. Coming from a public library background, I had always thought of privacy in terms of patron information (their address, phone number, checkout information, etc.), but my interviewee opened my eyes to other considerations of what this could mean in an academic setting. She noted that universities and colleges were often very competitive environments and that it was important to train staff and student volunteers to keep research requests private, because faculty and dissertation students wanted to keep their original research private until it was published. I had not thought of privacy in that context before.

Another interesting thing that my contact noted when asked “What were your considerations when developing your institution’s honesty policy?” was that she and the rest of her staff noticed that many of the academic honesty violations were being committed by international transfer students and faculty members. As it turns out, she discovered that the copyright laws and academic standards in other countries could vary widely and that the violators were often unaware of the difference in expectations. As a result, the university developed special information literacy sessions specifically geared at international students. I had never considered cultural differences and how this may add to the perception of what constitutes unethical behavior or academic dishonesty.

My contact said that her biggest piece of advice for new librarians would be to create an attitude of professionalism by treating this job as if you were a healthcare provider. In other words, she would ask the new librarian how he or she would want to be treated by their doctor, then apply that same level of courtesy to their patrons. She discussed the importance of keeping patron information confidential and treating all requests with respect, much like a doctor keeps medical files confidential due to HIPPA privacy laws.  She added that librarians should be especially sensitive to why someone might be asking a question. “We often ask a student for context… ‘Is this for a class? A particular project?’ but you never know the personal reasons behind why they may be asking and we need to respect those, too.”

One of the biggest concerns she noted for the profession as a whole was with “half-truth” accounts of information (things that are neither 100% true or false). She cited the recent Brian Williams scandal as just one example. She wondered about the ethical implications of someone in an information profession providing access to resources that contained "stretched truths."

One of my favorite things that my contact said was that she felt that teaching students to be ethically-minded in college also helps them in life after graduation. She asserted that students who were in the habit of regularly citing things were less likely to have issues in other areas of their lives. For example, a student that develops bad habits may see them bleed over into his or her working life to the resentment of his colleagues or the ire of his boss if credit is taken for ideas that are not original.  My interviewee felt that students with good academic honesty practices are “always thinking and always adding to existing knowledge” rather than taking it and claiming it as their own.

The final interesting tidbit I will share relates to the librarian’s experiences with distance education students. As suspected, she confirmed that online learning opportunities definitely pose a challenge to academic honesty. Again, she noted that most honesty violations among distance students occur because of poor educator practices. She felt that it was the academic librarian’s role to work with faculty members to help them better understand learning management systems. One example that she saw frequently was instructors using the same exam format every year, meaning that students could copy down the order of the answers and share them with one another. Librarians can make a difference by showing instructors how to use technology to randomize question and answer order. Additionally, she spoke about the importance of librarians being a part of the course planning process. In her opinion, librarians should work with faculty members to develop projects that require students to use the library and learn proper information use practices. Rather than issuing a traditional assessment, instructors could use comprehensive projects to determine knowledge acquisition and synthesis.
This section includes what I personally found most intriguing, but there were many important points brought up in the interview. It was difficult to choose just a few ideas to highlight and the ones I have included are not necessarily more important to the central focus of the interview. If this subject is of particular interest to you, I would recommend perusing through the entire interview by clicking on the “Read More” link.

Brief Reflections:

When looking at previous posts, I find it interesting that what my librarian interviewee said agreed with much of what I had discovered in my own research thus far. She also noted that forces outside of the student’s psyche could be responsible for influencing the student to engage in dishonest behavior. However, instead of placing the blame on the structure of the educational system as a whole, she cited examples of instructors who were not engaging in appropriate practices and setting poor examples. I particularly like her idea that librarians are responsible for educating the entire campus community about proper information use and this role includes ensuring that instructors are doing what they can to minimize dishonesty. I had never before considered myself as someday being in the role of “developing ethically minded citizens,” but after reflecting on this interview I can see how information literacy skills could easily transfer to a student’s life after college.

Discussion Questions:

What do you feel is the librarian’s role in preserving academic honesty? With distance education becoming more prevalent, how do you feel that librarians can reach out to students and arm them with the skills they need for ethical information use? What do you think it means to be an “ethical librarian”? What do you think has the most influence on a student’s decision to cheat? Poor faculty practices? The pressure and stress to achieve a particular grade? The student’s “ethical” personality? Are there any other influencing factors I have not discussed yet?

Image taken by the blog author.

See the entire interview below the cut!