STANFORD, Calif. (U-WIRE) — Arguably, it is human nature: Temptation surpasses proper academic conduct, and the desire to excel leads some to take extreme measures.

More commonly, writing a paper is only one click away on the Internet, taking an exam can be as simple as peeking over a neighbor’s shoulder, and writing a lab report is easier when concocting results that never were.

In the wake of recent studies showing that cheating is on the rise at institutions across the country, coupled with a rise in alleged honor code violations at Stanford University, many feel that it is time to reassess the university’s honor code and its role in the academic culture.

Duke University’s Center for Academic Integrity — an institute that helps create honor codes for its 250 member universities, including Stanford — has conducted several studies showing that cheating is on the rise at Duke and elsewhere.

A 2001-02 CAI survey of campuses nationwide found that 27 percent of students attested to falsifying lab data, 41 percent admitted to plagiarism on written assignments, 30 percent said they cheated during tests and 60 percent acknowledged unauthorized collaborations.

Comparison with data from the 1999-2000 academic year shows that the number of college students who said they had cut-and-pasted from the Internet without attributing their source rose from 10 percent to 41 percent.

Figures reported by Stanford’s Office of Judicial Affairs reflect the national trend. From 1998 to 2001, there has been a 126 percent increase in alleged violations of the honor code. In particular, the number of cases heard by the Judicial Panel involving “unpermitted aid” has increased from five to 45 and those involving “unpermitted collaborations” have risen from one to eight.

These numbers indicate an increase in reported cases across the university but do not necessarily show an increase in actual violations of the honor code.

“Definitely the cases that are being detected have increased,” said Laurette Beeson, judicial adviser at the Stanford University Office of Judicial Affairs. “We see only what gets reported to us.”

According to George Wilson, Judicial Affairs program coordinator, in the previous three academic years there has been an increase in the number of charged cases. He further added that there have been three expulsions in the past year and only one expulsion in the three years before that.

“I have observed a lot of in-class cheating,” said senior Alexis Halaby. “[I have heard] stories of people giving exams to other people to take … [and people] leaving notes in the bathroom.”

Junior Khaled Hasan recalled students fabricating lab data in his chemistry class.

“People would make stuff up,” he said. “I got the feeling that they expected people to be competing left and right and that [fabricating data] was part of the competition.”

“If someone cheats on a small portion to adjust their melting point … it’s trivial,” said Jonathan Touster, a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry. “If people are witnessing cheating, why don’t they report them to me?”

The honor code, established in 1921 under high demand from the student body and revised in the mid-’90s, has clear guidelines for cases involving a breach of academic integrity.

Stanford’s code, which is different from those used by schools like the University of Virginia, Cornell and Rice, is enforced by a judicial panel consisting of faculty, staff and students. At the University of Virginia, the system is entirely student-run.

At Cornell, exams are proctored by the instructor or a teaching assistant, whereas at Stanford, the honor code specifically includes a “no-proctoring” clause. This means that the professor or teaching assistant must leave the room before the exam can begin.

The honor code at Rice permits professors to give take-home exams.

“Students had more freedom to take tests within the guidelines of the honor code,” said Rice alumnus Ed Feng, a chemical engineering doctoral candidate. “Most tests were well-crafted in that if you didn’t [figure them out] in three hours, you wouldn’t get it at all.”

Although proctors can deter cheating, they may be unable to catch offenders in action.

“Any student who’s cheating will stop cheating when the TA walks in,” Halaby said.

A solution to an alleged increase in cheating may involve a more rigorous use of the honor code, which is meant to be a culturally enforced system, she said.

Feng noted that students learn about Rice’s honor code during freshman orientation.

“I don’t have a feeling that academic integrity is ever stressed at Stanford,” Halaby said. “Our honor code has become that thing that’s just there, and no one really acknowledges it.”

According to Beeson, “I think that faculty are in a bind in that they feel students know the honor code and feel that they don’t have to talk about it.”

As such, she suggested that one improvement to the current system is to have the faculty talk to their classes about the honor code.

If accused of cheating, students face the judicial panel.

If found guilty, “[the] standard penalty is one quarter’s suspension followed by 40 hours of community service,” Wilson said. “Stanford’s system is educational, not punitive.”

According to Beeson, if a student admits to having made a mistake, “the process will go much more smoothly.”

Halaby and Flores founded the Honor Code Reform Initiative in order to raise campus awareness and address honor code issues.

“We want to survey the student body to see how much students know about in-class cheating,” Halaby said. “[It] needs to be addressed.”

The survey will be distributed to undergraduate and graduate students and faculty next quarter. Data collected will then be assessed and used to make suggestions for improvement.

“We want to see how the honor code is working for everyone,” Flores said. “Our hope is that suggestions will arise from the survey.”

In light of the increase in the reported incidents of cheating, a number of departments have implemented measures to catch offenders. The Stanford University computer science department is using the University of California-Berkeley-developed Measure of Software Similarity program to automatically search lines of code for plagiarism, and other departments are using Internet search engines like Google to achieve the same purpose, Beeson said.

“You are in college of your own free will, so why would you not want to just do the work and get good grades on your own merit?” wondered Pedram Keyani, a computer science graduate student, who acknowledged use of the MOSS program in certain computer science courses.

“If you get a good job or into a good graduate school based on ill-deserved grades, everything from that point on is tainted, even if you never cheat again.”