A meeting was held on 30 May 2016 between Liliya Hrynevych and representatives and experts from the American Councils for International Education (ACTR/ACCELS) organization to discuss collaboration in a project to promote academic integrity in Ukraine.
The meeting was attended by Conrad Turner, Counsellor for Public Affairs and Culture at the US Embassy in Ukraine, Yarema Bachinsky, Director of American Councils in Ukraine; Dr. David P. Schmidt, Associate Professor of business ethics and director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at Fairfield University (USA); Katherine Nants, PhD and Professor of economics at Fairfield University (USA); and Taras Tymochko, Coordinator of the project to promote academic integrity in Ukraine.
The Minister emphasized the importance of academic integrity in Ukraine and thanked the representatives of American Councils for International Education for their support and collaboration in this area.
Liliya Hrynevych pointed out that a significant part of the project should be focused on proposals to levy sanctions for violations of academic integrity and to help universities in detecting plagiarism.
Conrad Turner, Counsellor for Public Affairs and Culture at the US Embassy in Ukraine, stressed the importance of the campaign and the role of universities in openness to issues of academic integrity. Conrad Turner suggested a Week of Academic Integrity for Ukrainian universities.
Taras Tymochko, Coordinator of the project to promote academic integrity in Ukraine, described a survey conducted by experts from the American Councils for International Education, where it was found that the responsibility for cheating by copying and willingness to pay bribes by students lies with lecturers. Among the reasons for such behaviour are uninteresting courses, no optional courses and the lack of motivation of students to learn from lecturers. The Project Coordinator said that the students, during interviews, had suggested the creation of centres to research the rationality of workloads at universities.
He described how the representatives of American Councils have developed plans to establish a Code of Integrity that would be governed by universities. The rules and principles of academic integrity must be firmly established in such documents. At the same time there is a need to create a structure that will assess violations and take into account the interests of all the parties.
Katherine Nants, PhD and Professor of economics at Fairfield University (USA), described her views on the responsibilities of students regarding compliance with academic integrity, and the need for the involvement of students in writing the rules of academic work. Dr. David P. Schmidt, Associate Professor of business ethics and director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at Fairfield University (USA), stressed the importance of a university code of ethics and its impact on reputations.
The parties stressed the importance of wide-reaching work on academic integrity in schools, following training for teachers.
During the meeting it was noted that the Ministry of Education and Science has developed amendments to legislation relating to academic integrity. In particular, the standards included in the Education law and draft amendments to the Higher Education Law of Ukraine. Also, work continues on the development of a national repository of academic texts that will help automate the process of checking for plagiarism.