Virtuous Academic Conduct Education - the VACE framework

Tilburg University’s education profile is based on three pillars: knowledge, skills and character, which are the bases to form critical thinkers and responsible individuals. Despite its unique profile, Tilburg University, like many other higher education organizations, encounters academic misconduct. The practice of misconduct has been the concern of academic organizations worldwide, urging them into developing their own policies to prevent these practices. Nevertheless, the number of students involved in academic misconduct, the abundant information available and access to it have all increased in recent years, despite these policies. Paula Roncaglia observes that to decrease students’ engagement in academic misconduct, there are, at least, three major issues that must be addressed: First, students do not have enough opportunities to learn about the academic practices systematically. Second, courses teaching about academic practices take on a more legalistic approach which is not effective or relevant to students’ interests. Finally, students do not identify themselves with the rules created and enforced by the academic community. 

In the past academic year (2022/2023), Paula Roncaglia and a team developed the Virtuous Academic Conduct Education framework (VACE) to educate students of the CSAI bachelor program on a virtuous academic conduct. The VACE framework makes use of the intellectual virtues of curiosity, honesty, open-mindedness, and perseverance, as a scaffold to teach the educational content and skills in the entire bachelor curriculum. In the current academic year, the VACE-framework has been implemented in four first-year courses and in the coming academic year we are extending it to the second- and third-year courses. As part of this framework first year students will be welcomed to our program and introduced to our educational framework in a plenary lecture and can make use of different tools integrated in our courses to reflect on and practice their understanding of proper academic conduct. Among these tools are the Paraphrase and Quoting in a Virtuous Academic Conduct Education (ParQ-VACE tool) and the Academic Conduct Quiz.