Academic Integrity and its Implications in Higher Education

This report discusses academic integrity, its importance, and implications of academic misconduct in higher education. It also reflects on the steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing a game for project 2. The subject is Business Management with Foundation, and the course code is BMP3003 for Further Academic Skills. The report is relevant to students and faculty in universities and colleges.

Business Management with Foundation
BMP3003
Further Academic Skills
Academic Integrity
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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Section 1.....................................................................................................................................3
An Introduction including a description of Academic Integrity............................................3
A discussion of the importance of academic integrity in higher education...........................4
Discuss the implications of academic misconduct.................................................................5
Section 2.....................................................................................................................................6
Reflection on the steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the game for
project 2..................................................................................................................................6
Reflection on the skills learned..............................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

Introduction
Academic integrity refers to the expectation that instructors, students, and researchers in
the academic community operate with honesty, respect, and fairness, among other qualities.
The students in higher education are expected to uphold academic integrity in their studies.
The legislation of educational values is influenced in academic integrity through behaviors
such as avoidance of cheating, plagiarism. The universities are required to maintain academic
standards and honesty. To promote academic integrity, there must be avoidance of dishonest
academic behavior such as plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification (Bowden, J.A. and
Green, P.J., 2019). For the university goal, scientific integrity is the basis that enables
exchange and new knowledge is developed. In terms of scientific integrity, it also requires
that the individual scientists work together and trust one another. The report is divided into
two sections. The topics dealt with in the first section are the description of the academic
integrity and its meaning and implications of academic misconduct in the university
environment. The second section reflects the steps and difficulties encountered in producing
the game. It also takes into account the skills learned during the game's creation process.
Section 1
An Introduction including a description of Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the ethical guideline or moral code of science. Don McCabe
developed the concept of academic integrity, which is considered the grandfather of academic
integrity. The practice of academic integrity is divided into three components, namely
teaching, research and service. The term integrity defines the observance of moral and ethical
principles as well as the quality of a person's character. The university and the broader
academic community build on the shared values and norms of conduct that include honesty,
fairness and responsibility. Academic integrity defines the putting into practice of these
values through honesty in the work of academics at the university and fairness to others.
Responsibility for accepted learning and conventions of science are followed with academic
integrity (Chauhan, P.K. and et. al., 2018). The academic integrity is demonstrated by the
using appropriate information in accordance to copyrights and privacy laws, other people's
work is not presented as our own work, in line with the university regulation the research is
conducted ethically. The aim of academic integrity to develop knowledge in academic
community and ensures to maximize fairness and accuracy. The integrity is considered as the
academic misconduct. If individual fails to comply with integrity, it attracts towards penalty.

The six core values are contained in academic integrity: fairness, honesty, trust, respect,
responsibility and courage. The colleges, universities and institutions use various tools and
techniques like ProctorCam, Keystroke pattern recognition software, TURNITIN, etc. to
verify data integrity offered by people. Academic integrity is based on five pillars.
1. Honesty- Sincerity is defined by it. The honest person have the skills, and their efforts
are fairly portrayed. Honest students adhere to the university's policies and work
without seeking outside assistance. Honest pupils work independently while adhering
to the professor's guidelines.
2. Trust- It is established in the system where all members provide their best effort since
the structure and policies are fair and equitable. The trust helps in making working
relationship simple as relationship is built with peers and instructors which is based
on actions (Curtis, G.J. and et. al., 2018).
3. Fairness- It goes along with trust where each individual must believe that they will be
treated fairly and will be judged by the same standards as others are judged in
community. The efficiency in the work comes out with fair system.
4. Respect- It allows people to express their thoughts and opinions. Students
demonstrate respect by listening to other people's points of view, meeting deadlines,
and doing their best work. The instructor also demonstrates respect by listening to the
student's ideas and providing complete and honest comments. In order to learn new
knowledge, the utmost efforts are made.
5. Responsibility- It defines the acknowledging of daily actions and accountability in
the work. The working of everyone is performed with integrity and encourages others
to act with integrity too. The academic integrity starts with the individuals and
influence positively to entire community (Dadkhah, M and et.al., 2018).
A discussion of the importance of academic integrity in higher education
In university higher education, greater importance is attached to scientific integrity,
which is fundamental to learning, teaching and research. Students require assistance in the
development of academic skills that are recognised by instructional approaches. Students and
faculty are free to develop new ideas, expertise, and creative work while maintaining
academic integrity. Others' work is far too well-known and valued. Academic integrity
standards, procedures, and guidelines must be followed by both staff and students at
universities. Academic integrity is crucial in higher education because it allows students to
succeed by executing their jobs honestly and avoiding negative repercussions (Halffman, W.

and Horbach, S.P.J.M., 2018). True academic achievement is maintaining intellectual
integrity while receiving a degree at a university. The university must be consistent and
trustworthy in its standards of assessment and courses in order for the community to trust
graduates.
Discuss the implications of academic misconduct
Academic misconduct is any type of fraud that is used to gain unfair academic
advantage. Academic dishonesty defines various actions by students that violate the expected
norms of the school, university, or other learning establishment. The scientific misconduct is
outlined as an institutional guideline. It contains a wide variety of behaviors such as
plagiarism, fraud, alteration of academic documents, etc. It is a type of fraud that occurs in
connection with formal academic practice (Pandoi, D. and Gupta, A.K., 2018). The
universities take scientific misconduct seriously and ensure that it is dealt with efficiently and
appropriately.
Types of academic misconduct-
 Plagiarism- It is common in academic misconduct with the increasing problem in
higher education. The other person work is presented as the own without having the
proper acknowledgment of source. It includes the use of thoughts, ideas or writing of
other person as own with or without the creator permission, intentionally or
unintentionally.
 Collusion- It is also a form of plagiarism, which is unauthorized and unassigned
collaboration by students on a graded work. The collaboration of two or more students
on individual tasks is an unauthorized collaboration as the teacher expects to work
alone (Reedy, A.K. and et. al., 2020).
 Falsification or fabrication- It is an attempt to consciously use material in any
formal academic exercise by presenting fabricated or altered facts, evidence,
references, and citations. It entails making changes to an academic document or
activity. False assertions are made about the research conducted in the falsification
process.
 Sabotage- Another person's work is destroyed (documents, design) or disrupted in
order to prevent their academic endeavor from succeeding. Academic sabotage is
sometimes defined as failure to contribute to a compulsory team project. Infecting
another person's computer with viruses or spyware.

The implication of the academic misconduct are the penalties imposed by the
universities on the offending students. For the institutions the academic misconduct is
becoming serious problem in higher education. The cheating puts implication on students,
teachers, and on educational systems. In workplace and classes, the students are engaged in
more fraud. The emotional distress is caused on the faculty member and the reputation of
university is affected (Rudasill, K.M. and et. al., 2018). The university takes the formal
actions if students cheat, falsify, fabricate data which includes the actions of fines, loss of
future projects and puts serious impact on loss of opportunities for students in future
Section 2
Reflection on the steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the
game for project 2
In the current competition, education has become a high priority and there is a lot of abuse of
academic misconduct. In order to protect the information at the universities, I came up with
the idea of producing the game on the subject of plagiarism in the case of scientific
misconduct. The main purpose of producing the game was to understand the value of
academic integrity so that academic misconduct related to conducting exams and school
assessments can be avoided. I developed the plagiarism game to help the students by
protecting them from various legal entities. In producing this game various tools and
techniques were searched which helped in the developing strategies to avoid plagiarism
problem in academic life of student. The game is developed and named as key plagiarism for
which the student is required to download the game in their computers. After this the content
will be copied from word and paste in the software to detect the plagiarism. The software will
have the tool by the mane of red alert which will help in detecting the plagiarism in content.
For producing the game, firstly, I generated several ideas which can helps the students in
academic misconduct and can be easy in understandable. Secondly, I researched to make the
game of plagiarism which will be played between the teachers and students and for that they
have to develop the software. For the development of the software I researched on the
graphics and designing to make it attractive and more interesting. In the game I put a feature
of fun and write where short content of 100 to 500 words can be included. To make the game
more interesting the teachers can give students to write on short content without plagiarism.
The second tool in the game I have included is grammatical magic which will help in
detecting the grammatical error in content of person. It will also help in improving the writing
skill of the person which will be beneficial for them in the future.

In framing the game difficulties faced by me are-
The first problem I faced in the selection of the game for the academic misconduct
from various game ideas by considering the main motive. The second difficulty was in
designing the software and how it will be used to detect the plagiarism. Also I faced the
difficulty what tools and features must be included in the software so that it can provide fun
to the students and maintains their interest. The third, difficulty was regarding the designing
of the graphics that which color to be choose, what kind of design to be used so as to make it
more attractive.
Reflection on the skills learned
I discovered a lot of abilities that I already possessed while constructing the game of
integrity, and some new skills assisted me in growing it, making the game more engaging. I
improved my presenting abilities while building the game because these were the talents that
allowed me to effectively communicate my ideas and views. It has also helped me in using
Power Point effectively, which includes pictures, diagrams, and different styles of text to
make the idea clearer and easier to understand. I had the writing skills that helped me a lot
designing the game. The writing skills make it easy for me to write the game and instructions
without grammatical errors and easy to understand for any person. The user also gets a clear
understanding of the game to avoid plagiarism. I developed creativity skills as it takes
creative thinking to develop the game. It helps the person to complete the work in a creative
way and it generates various ideas for the development of the game. When developing the
game, I already had the time management skill which helped me manage time effectively to
save time on unnecessary activities. This skill has helped me focus on the game and its
creation.
Conclusion
Academic integrity is critical in higher education, according to the findings. The students
must be motivated to generate their own ideas, knowledge to avoid the academic misconduct
from different sources so that learning and personal development can be enhanced. In the
academic integrity the discussion was based on its importance and academic misconduct with
its types and implications. The reflection in regards to the game producing and skills
developed was provided.

References
Bowden, J.A. and Green, P.J., 2019. Writing with integrity. In Playing the PhD Game with
Integrity (pp. 163-197). Springer, Singapore.
Chauhan, P.K. and et. al., 2018. Peer-based interventions on academic integrity: assessing
immediate and long term learning. Journal of Academic Ethics. 16(2). pp.133-149.
Curtis, G.J. and et. al., 2018. Self-control, injunctive norms, and descriptive norms predict
engagement in plagiarism in a theory of planned behavior model. Journal of Academic
Ethics. 16(3). pp.225-239.
Dadkhah, M and et.al., 2018. A method for improving the integrity of peer review. Science
and engineering ethics, 24(5), pp.1603-1610.
Halffman, W. and Horbach, S.P.J.M., 2018. Correction to: The changing forms and
expectations of peer review. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 3(1).
Pandoi, D. and Gupta, A.K., 2018. Reflection of Norms in developing Positive or Negative
Attitude for Plagiarism among Students. Aweshkar Research Journal. 25(2).
Reedy, A.K. and et. al., 2020. We can see clearly now: Making academic integrity visible
through an eye-catching website: Focus Area: Making academic integrity visible.
Rudasill, K.M. and et. al., 2018. Systems view of school climate: A theoretical framework for
research. Educational psychology review. 30(1). pp.35-60.