ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

INTRODUCTION

• Acting honestly in academic work prepares one for success in his/her personal and professional future.

• Once you graduate, the skills will always be in you and with you, because they belong to you. Wherever life might take you, your honesty will pay in a more stable currency.

TERMINOLOGIES

• Integrity is being honest and having strong moral principles. It is acting right even when no one is watching.

• Academic Integrity is considered to entail honesty, responsibility, and openness to both scholarship and scholarly activity (Lang J, 2013).

• Academic dishonesty is “any action or attempted action that may result in creating an unfair academic advantage for oneself or disadvantage for any other member(s) of the academic community” (UC Berkeley Code of Student Conduct).It is the opposite of academic integrity which involves cheating in exams, plagiarism among others

FORMS OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

• Plagiarism- Copying the work of others and presenting it as your own original work.

• Examples include:- copy or cut pasting from others (authors) more than accepted , not referencing academic works, from others (authors) more than accepted

• Facilitation- This is any activity that makes work for others easy, example-copying answers from friends

• Failure to contribute- This happen when all group members are not willing to take part in a group assignment.

• Collision/Conspiracy-it means working together or colluding to commit an academic dishonesty

• Misrepresentation- It refers to any act or omission that is intended to deceive the instructor to get an academic advantage e.g. cheating when confronted with an academic dishonesty issue or lying in an attempt to increase your grades like Editing your marks

• Bribery-It takes two forms, bribing someone for academic advantage or accepting a bribe for the same

CAUSES OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

• Peer pressure-It involve doing what your peers are doing even if it is wrong so that you don’t seem the odd one out.

• Performance anxiety -The desire to perform well even when one has not worked hard may trigger the person to use other means like stealing in exams or copy pasting someone else work.

• Inability to meet students needs -This is always a fault with the institution. This can be inform of Inability to complete the syllabus, inexperienced lectures and lack of enough study material can cause student use shortcut means

• Lack of understanding of awaiting consequences-You may not know how bad an offense is if you don’t know the awaiting consequence. This is the case with most of the people who are involved in academic dishonesty

• Lack of understanding of what entails academic dishonesty-Student may fail to understand of what is considered academic dishonesty and thus involved in the act unknowingly.

EFFECTS OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

• Half backed professionals- In today’s job market, ’professionals’ have the papers but they have nothing to offer when it comes to practical work performance and problem solving.

• Academic failure- If caught in this vice, the student may end up failing the course/assignments or even suspended/ expelled from the university. This is costly to the parents and the students.

• It tarnishes the public image of the institution -No any ethical parent or employer would wish to be associated with a student or an institution where success is not based on hard work.

KNOWLEDGE AMBASSADORS AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY (ROLE)

• Reporting academic misconduct cases to the relevant authority

• Lias with the institution or student leadership council to Organize events and workshops that help train users on academic integrity

• Form clubs with an aim of teaching the students on issues to do with academic integrity

• Act as role models so that they can be emulated by the other students by acting in an honest manner

• Organize and hold discussion forums and groups where members can share knowledge on academic integrity and through that they learn from each other

• By doing the above, then they will help their fellow students to:-

• Learn information literacy skills.

• Acknowledge the work of others.

• Manage their time well, prepare for examinations and assignments.

• Learn and respect the rules.

HOW INSTITUTION CAN HELP UPHOLD ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

• Hash Penalties for the offence like expulsion from the academic institution can help curb this vice since student won’t risk expulsion for an offence they could avoid. The same penalties should also apply to the academic staff

• Formulation of policies and rules that guide on and govern academic integrity and share with the relevant groups

• Inclusion of information literacy skills into course curriculum- With this skills, students can be able to identify information need, locate and access the relevant resources .They will also learn what and how to reference them

• Student training on academic integrity-Training the user on all that entail academic integrity. What it is, its cause, effects and how to avoid and the penalties may help since some user don’t know what is really considered as academic dishonesty

• Professionalism among staff -Staffs should behave in a professional manner and thus mark exam and credit each student with what they deserve, teach well, not receive bribe among others and thus leave as ambassadors of academic integrity .

CONCLUSION

Academic integrity and honesty are central components of a student’s education. Academicians should not only uphold but also be ambassador of academic integrity for a better and successful future. lets live knowing that :- Academic dishonesty is a short term success but a long term failure and thus the final you should be your main concern.