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The Importance of Academic Integrity: Nurturing Independent Learning and Ethical Conduct

1. Introduction to Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is critical to the learning process and student outcomes. Higher education faculty members communicate their expectations regarding academic integrity to students in a number of ways: publishing personal codes of ethics, discussing ethics in face-to-face courses, and using tools provided by academic integrity offices. This chapter reviews the importance of academic integrity and offers practical examples of how faculty members can help students learn ethical conduct. It also explains why writing is some of the most difficult academic integrity terrain among academic assignments. Finally, it reviews ways faculty members can support students as they write.

Academic integrity is critical for student success. Faculty members can take steps to help support student learning and encourage ethical conduct. Writing is some of the most complicated academic integrity terrain for faculty members and students to navigate. Faculty members can use writing to help students learn about and honor academic integrity. As faculty members come to understand academic integrity more deeply, they can view themselves and their students not as opponents, but as allies in the learning process. Instructors can not only support students as they learn about and practice ethical behavior, but can encourage students to see themselves as competent and capable as they do so.

2. Consequences of Academic Dishonesty

In recent years, academic dishonesty appears to have become more of a problem. Younger Australian and international students, less able to cope with the demands of Australian tertiary education and under increasing personal pressure, are taking what they consider to be the only course of action open to them: to plagiarize. International students, in particular, have different ideas about academic honesty and less clear understanding about the long-term consequences of cheating. In talking with these students, it is easy for me to see the moral struggles many are going through as they weigh up the need to honor family expectations that they succeed in Australia by finding it personally unbearable to admit that they are failing. They see no alternative but to cheat, in the hope that their families never find out.

Affirming that rigor, fairness, compliance, and transparency remain the gold standard in terms of good practice can be very easy in theory but presents a profound strategic challenge in practice, particularly if then, we invoke the increasingly popular metaphor – the market model of higher education – which sees our educational services for sale to students, no longer as a partnership of equals, but as a service which competes in a shark-infested ocean. If this market metaphor is valid, any service, including that of higher education, purchased ought to deliver on its promises, ought it not? The challenge we face, then, is educating our students so that they know and understand that the promises of academic integrity and of aiming for high professional standards are worth something more than meets the eye, that their degree genuinely represents the professional competence promised. How do we, their teachers, show them that they are capable of meeting the challenges before them, of managing their time well and of successfully completing their studies in the time available to them?

3. Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism and Cheating

Students who understand the importance of expressing their own ideas and who are familiar with the college’s policy on plagiarism and cheating are less likely to violate the policy. Many resources are available to help students learn these essentials and to discourage unethical conduct. At orientation, plan to present to students information about what constitutes plagiarism and cheating.

An essential part of your orientation is to convey the seriousness of plagiarism and cheating and to discuss how students can become ready to take responsibility for maintaining academic integrity. Changes in policy and student population may make it necessary for you to schedule a series of different presentations at different levels. Pre-testing can provide the information needed to revise these presentations. By the time tests and work are handed back, students should be well acquainted with the information presented in orientation. If you have time and resources available, administer information on campus regarding what factors promote academic integrity. This information is valuable when you plan academic programs that are likely to include students who have attended a variety of institutions with policies different from your own.

4. Fostering a Culture of Integrity in Educational Institutions

Fostering a culture of honesty is indispensable in educational institutions. This cannot be achieved in a vacuum. It requires an environment that promotes truthfulness as a fundamental value. This is a collective responsibility. Educational institutions, parents, policy makers, and the general community need to work in unison to create an environment that encourages independent learning and original thought. This article will elaborate on these roles and explore how they may be achieved in partnership.

Academic integrity promotes responsibility, honesty, fairness, and trust in educational institutions. The reasons for this are straightforward. The relationship between students and educators is founded on the premise that the students’ education is a shared enterprise, whereby both the student and educator bear the burden of fulfilling common educational goals. Educators work to facilitate the learning process and seek to instill in their students the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in their respective fields. Conversely, students promise to engage in the opportunity to learn honestly and openly in pursuit of their academic development. They pledge to undertake and fulfill the tasks required of them in good faith, as an essential part of the shared educational process.