The Draft WSU Conduct Code & Collaboration

I am particularly concerned about two aspects of the the new WSU student code of conduct draft document—the prohibitions against “unauthorized” collaboration and cross-course/disciplinary use of a student’s original work.

To understand my concerns, my first assumption is that an important goal of a research institution is to invite students to join a community of scholars, or, as Bruffee(Bruffee 1984) has long argued, to join in the “conversation.” Central to that community, then, are the conversations around ideas, inside the classroom and outside of them. Why would we discourage such conversations or attempt to oversee them by supposing we might authorize some and not others? What kind of community are we creating and supporting by asserting that academic discourse requires oversight?

I recognize the concerns that have evinced the prohibitions, but rather than pursue a negative strategy, I see a tremendous opportunity to help novice learners gain a deeper appreciation for their own and each other’s intellectual property by framing the issue in positive terms. Instead of “unauthorized” collaboration, why not invite students to share ideas and deepen their understanding of the need to have their own and their peers contributions acknowledged and even cited? And shouldn’t we leave it to the instructor’s prerogative to state other restrictions, including the need for some amount of academic work to be done individually?

Similarly, the disciplinary frameworks that shape the way academics work provide critical opportunity for novice learners to come to grips with different ways of knowing. Developing their own understanding of ideas can be substantially enhanced by encouraging students to examine their own and others’ ideas through the lenses of different disciplines. Further, new knowledge about learning recognizes that a major difference between novices and experts is in the way information is interconnected. Discouraging the exploration of the differences between disciplinary vantages, including placing prohibitions against using an idea or paper in multiple classes, counters much of our own practice as scholars and counters good pedagogy. I am distinguishing between making two copies and handing the same paper in to two different classes versus working through an idea or concept as it might be enhanced and expanded when examined through different disciplines and for different audiences. But the prohibition as it is framed unnecessarily compromises the potential of very rich learning opportunities as they can be designed in collaboration and implemented in WSU’s budding learning communities. Again, it should be the instructor’s prerogative to assert the need for a unique paper.

The discussion of what an author owes his/her readers in making citations and in exploring an idea through multiple lenses, however, is on the cusp of larger issues. The idea of “text” and the nature of ideas are changing dramatically. The notion of the sole author is rapidly disappearing. Initiatives by Google are creating a new world, and the universal document embodied in the collaboration of Wikipedia and the semantic web challenges conventional notions about the ownership of ideas. See, for instance, Brown’s & Duguid's (1995) seminal article, "The Social Life of Documents -- http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/papers/sociallife.html.

Emerging from these profound changes is the overwhelming realization that information and ideas as they are negotiated and constructed online are increasingly indistinguishable from the social negotiations emerging online. The forces changing text and the world of ideas are also changing our students. We can deny those forces and risk casting all educational endeavor toward utter irrelevance. Or we can learn from them, with our students, and, as a community, perhaps shape them more productively.

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Bruffee, K. (1984). "Collaborative learning and the "Conversation of mankind."" College English 46: 635-652.