A change in the way Penn State handles cheating and plagiarism has resulted in a sharply higher number of reported cases, university officials said.

During the 2001-02 academic year, the Office of Judicial Affairs logged 268 breaches of academic integrity, compared with 51 cases the previous year.

"This pattern is exactly what we should expect," said Janis Jacobs, vice provost for undergraduate education and international programs. "This increase shows that faculty are more willing to report and follow up on infractions because we now have a clear policy that's easy to follow."

The policy change gives individual colleges control over their own academic integrity cases, but allows them to refer students to Judicial Affairs if further disciplinary action seems warranted. Judicial Affairs also maintains a university-wide record of cheating violations across the colleges.

Five students were penalized with the recently implemented XF grade last academic year, up slightly from three in 2000-01.

An XF grade on a transcript indicates that the student failed the course because of particularly severe academic integrity infractions.

Jacobs presented the data during an update to the Penn State Board of Trustees Friday. Trustee David Jones asked Jacobs and other administrators why more students did not receive this mark. "We didn't want to saddle that person with a red 'A' for the rest of their life," said Rodney Erickson, executive vice president and provost. "It could become something of a scarlet letter."

The most common punishment for cheating during the 2001-02 school year was giving students a zero for the assignment or test. Almost half of the students caught were disciplined in this way.

Nearly 30 percent of the cases ended in the student failing the course entirely, and the five XF instances accounted for 2 percent of penalties.

Other sanctions included a reduced grade on an assignment or the course as a whole, the obligation of redoing the work or just a warning.

Jacobs said the new system allows people within varied disciplines to be judged fairly by those who are familiar with what constitutes cheating.

"What's considered collaboration in one college may be cheating in another," she added.

Almost all of the cases from last year were handled by faculty within the colleges. Seven were overseen by Judicial Affairs.

Just under three-quarters of all infractions from last year were classified as plagiarism. Administrators said this kind of cheating is the easiest to catch because of the hard evidence involved.

Jacobs said the university is getting somewhat better at catching cheaters. She pointed to a graph showing reported academic-integrity breaches from years prior to 2000, which were all below 15 a year.

"If you look at that graph, those old numbers are just way too low to be believable," she said.