Academic Integrity in Higher Education: Importance, Implications, and Reflections

This article discusses the importance of academic integrity in higher education, including its values of honesty, respect, and responsibility. It also explores the implications of academic misconduct and reflects on a group project, highlighting the skills learned in the process.

BSc (Hons) Business Management with
Foundation
BMP3003
Further Academic Skills
Academic Integrity

Contents
Introduction 2
Section 1 3-6
An Introduction including a description of Academic Integrity
3-4
A discussion of the importance of academic integrity in higher
education 4-5
Discuss the implications of academic misconduct 5-6
Section 2 6-8
Reflect on the steps you have taken, and difficulties encountered
in producing the game for Assignment 2 6-7
Reflect on the skills you have learned this academic year and
those emphasized in producing your game 7-8
Conclusion 9
References 10

Introduction
Academic integrity is the way researchers, teachers, students and other members of
the community act with respect, responsibilities and honesty. It is the best way of success
by performing own task with honest behavior. It is key elements which helps in removing
the failure and cheating consequences through involving the honest decisions. It helps the
teachers ad students o build their knowledge, new ideas and skills through respecting and
encouraging each other work (Sotiriadou, Logan, Daly, AEaton, 2021) . The main motive
of the academic integrity is being fair to others, honest and respectful in academic work
and involving the effective learning. It enables an individual or group of people to work
with honesty which can lead a positive impact on the their life.
Section 1
An Introduction including a description of Academic Integrity
Academic integration is a set of values which involves the honesty, courage, respect ,
trust and responsibility which every individual need to follow. It helps in promoting the
knowledge of individuals through interacting and sharing the thoughts and ideas of others
with honesty. It states that how to get succeed in academics through expressing the thoughts
and ideas which helps in understanding that how to avoid misconduct. It helps in creating a
healthy environment through maintaining honesty, respect and allocation of responsibilities
within the environment (Chankova, 2020). It leads success through acknowledging the
efforts and knowledge of each other. It indicates honesty with your work without any
cheating and failure towards studies and academic works. This helps students and teachers
to maintain good interpersonal relation among them through respecting and following
honesty in their work. It reflects putting of efforts based on learning for completing the task
and activities. Academic integrity helps in building trust of leader among the colleagues and
team members. Every individual is accountable or their own actions and helps to become
role model for other members to follow.
It is necessary to maintain academic integrity through following the proper
planning ,clarifying the instructions, knowledge about ideas of others and following of
instruction. It is important to provide reward, correcting the mistakes, providing
consequences and follow the proper instructions. The most critical type of academic
misconduct is plagiarism and cheating which should not follow in order to have academic

integrity. For building the academic integrity it is necessary to be role model for others,
surround yourself with individual of integrity and evaluate own ethics and values.
Knowledge plays an important role in completing the integrity because without knowledge
integrity is useless (Sheard, and et.al 2018). Integrity is the factor which shows the person
positive quality which helps in creating good image and achieving the success factor in a
effective manner. Academic integrity for students means that there no work should be
plagiarize or cheating base, it should be in their own words which will helps in building
their knowledge. It shows that people should respect and acknowledge others people
participation and respect the role which they played in improving skills and area of
knowledge. Universities aware students about integrity misconduct through organising the
councils and session and provide training on importance of academic integrity.
A discussion of the importance of academic integrity in higher
education
Academic integrity is the quality of moral and ethical values of an individual. It is
important for the institutions to support and promote the academic integrity in order to
address the students misconduct regarding academic integrity (Ives, and Nehrkorn, 2019) .
There are the following points which shows the importance of academic integrity in higher
education-
Professional development: It is necessary to build the educational integrity related
to development of professional staff which helps in developing coordination and
communication skills with respect towards the students. It builds interpersonal skills which
help in effective working environment without any involvement of mistakes and failures
chances. Building of educational integrity helps in creating the knowledgeable content and
learning strategies for students which enhance the learning platform of the students.
Academic integrity helps to gain trust and respect from other individuals through presenting
them honest and respectful behavior.
Learning opportunity: Academic integrity helps in learning opportunity because
work done by students with integrity helps them to away from cheating, plagiarism and
academic misconduct. This helps the students to learn and find the area where they need to
build their knowledge and it will enhance the future learning journey. Learning respect starts
with academic integrity because respect is the key factor that create long- term learning
opportunities for both students and researchers. Academic dishonesty breaks the trust and

disrespect the others academic work. This helps a individual to attract other people towards
him or her by behaving in ethical manner and leads other to follow as a role model.
Accurate assessment: The accurate assessment depends upon the academic integrity
because if students answers not done by them then it will difficult to identify the area of
error and where the students lacking in terms of knowledge. Teachers will not able to give
feedback on students work. Learning respect starts with academic integrity because respect
is the key factor that create long- term learning opportunities for both students and
researchers. Academic dishonesty breaks the trust and disrespect the others academic work.
Academic integrity indicates the workplace behavior because academic dishonesty in
colleges or schools indicates dishonesty in workplace. Academic integrity must be
established in order to have long term integrity.
Knowledge development: It helps in creating the moral and ethical values in
students which is necessary for their future endeavors. This helps in creating a respect
towards the academic work which is crucial for knowledge development of students as well
as teachers. Academic integrity helps in formulating new idea and thought based on other
people knowledge which directly contributes towards the innovative idea. Creation of
healthy and dishonesty free environment that can be made through involving the
participation of honest and respectful people. It helps in building trust among leaders and
their subordinates which leads set of guidelines and it is necessary element for academic
integrity.
It is necessary to understand the importance of the academic integrity in higher
education which helps in creating awareness related top dishonesty and misconduct
regarding academic integrity. This helps in increasing the knowledge level of the students
and creating honesty and respectful behavior among teachers and students.
Discuss the implications of academic misconduct
Academic misconduct refers to the action taken against the academic integrity which
involves cheating, plagiarism or any other dishonest practices. It decrease the role of
academic integrity through applying the misconduct activities (Daoud, Alrabaiah, and
Zaitoun, 2019). Plagiarism detector software used by the institution in order to check the
plagiarism work which decrease the most common academic misconduct activity. There are
the following implications of academic integrity-

Plagiarism- It refers to the use of words, ideas and thoughts of others and crediting
them as own words. This creates problem of academic misconduct and leads failure of an
individual knowledge and success. Academic institutions should not allow the work based
on other individual knowledge and thoughts it should be different from each other.
Individual should adopt the their own learning material and own words in order to avoid the
plagiarism (Manoharan, and Ye, 2020). Avoiding plagiarism helps in building the
knowledge and innovative ideas of an individual and able to perform tasks or activities
effectively in future. Institution use many software which detect the plagiarism through
which they able to find the copied work of others.
Cheating- It refers to the looking at other individual works during any activity or
test and involves many other types of misconduct activities. It decrease the scope of
academic integrity and low the level of an individual knowledge and skills. Individual
should not copy the work of others and contribute their own knowledge in the activities
which leads increase in person academic integrity. It helps in formulating new and
innovative ideas and skills which helps in performing the task or activity in a better manner.
It can create negative image of an individual in front of others if person is not following the
academic integrity properly.
Inaccuracy in assessment- It refers to cheating, plagiarism in academic activities
done by students, instructors will not able to assess the performance of students, skills and
knowledge of an particular area. It creates difficulty for teachers and instructors to find the
area of students where they need to work on them regarding their learning and academic
knowledge. This leads problem to the students in improving their knowledge and skills in a
particular area. Person should focus on avoiding plagiarism , cheating and other misconduct
activities so that they can able to gain knowledge and perform at higher scale with new and
innovative skills.
Practical concern- It refers to the academic dishonesty which involves confirming
that individual have done particular course or program but they have not. It can be
probabilistic in future when they need to perform practical activity and have no knowledge
about that field. Student should gain the practical knowledge in order to build the skills so
that they can perform well (Orr, 2018). They should focus on honesty and maintain trust
with other people in institution or at workplace. Unauthorised practices creates negative
impact on an individual work life and

Section 2
Reflect on the steps you have taken, and difficulties encountered
in producing the game for Assignment 2
I was assigned a group project during my college days and we were four members in
my team ( I and three other group members). For completing the project we did lot of
research from many sources which helps us in collecting the data. We divide the work
between us based on individual knowledge and area of specialisation which helps in
performing the task effectively (Kaktiņš, 2018). We decided to complete the work before
deadline but it was difficult for us to complete because that requires lot of time and proper
coordination. We connected with each other through organising meeting or calls. The thing
which worked was submitting the assignment on time and the data which we covered was
not involve any academic dishonesty or plagiarism. The thing which did not work was
proper coordination and communication with team members because two of my team
member was responding on time which delayed in work.
Through this project I learned lot of skills and knowledge regarding academics and
other areas. Communication and interpersonal skills helps me in coordinating with team
members effectively. We followed the key fundamentals of academic integrity in our team
project was trust, respect, honesty and fairness in our work. This helps us avoiding the
academic misconduct activities and leads fair result in our project. Ever individual in our
team was responsible to accountable to each other for their duties. Group project helps in
building the educational academic integrity which directly contributes towards the future
success of ours (Solmon, 2018) . All these helps in maintaining good image of individual in
front of teachers and other staff members of the institution. In last, we were able to submit
the project on time and achieved good scores because our project was not based on any
cheating, plagiarism activities. It was in our own words which helped us in creating new and
innovative ideas and through this I learned lot of skills which can be beneficial for me in my
future projects.
Reflect on the skills you have learned this academic year and
those emphasized in producing your game

I have learned lot of skills from the project which helps me executing in my future
projects and enhance my knowledge. There are the following skills which I have learned-
Interpersonal skills- Interpersonal skill helps me in interacting with the team
members through maintaining proper communication and coordination. Proper
communication and coordination leads in effective working of the project.
Leadership skills- Leadership skills helps in influencing the behavior of other
members of the team. This contributes in maintaining the relationship with each member of
the team.
Academic integrity- Academic integrity helped in performing the work with
honesty without any involvement of cheating and plagiarism.

Conclusion
In the above report it is analysed that academic integrity is the quality of an
individual to act with honesty and respect. It involves the honest decision and work of the
individual without any involvement of cheating and failure. It is also identified that the
importance of the academic integrity in higher education which contributes towards the
honest success of the individual. Implications of the academic integrity also analysed in
context of individual and institutional working. In the last reflected the information related
to the project which have done and skills which learned from the activity during academic
year and their contribution towards completing the project.

References
Books and journals
Chankova, M., 2020. Teaching academic integrity: The missing link. Journal of Academic
Ethics, 18(2), pp.155-173.
Daoud, S., Alrabaiah, H. and Zaitoun, E., 2019, December. Technology for promoting
academic integrity: The impact of using turnitin on reducing plagiarism. In 2019
International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT) (pp. 178-181).
IEEE.
Eaton, S.E., 2021. Plagiarism in higher education: Tackling tough topics in academic
integrity. ABC-CLIO.
Ives, B. and Nehrkorn, A., 2019. A research review: post-secondary interventions to
improve academic integrity. Prevention and detection of academic misconduct in
higher education, pp.39-62.
Kaktiņš, L., 2018. Contract cheating advertisements: what they tell us about international
students’ attitudes to academic integrity. Ethics and Education, 13(2), pp.268-284.
Manoharan, S. and Ye, X., 2020, November. On upholding academic integrity in online
examinations. In 2020 IEEE Conference on e-Learning, e-Management and e-
Services (IC3e) (pp. 33-37). IEEE.
Orr, J., 2018. Developing a campus academic integrity education seminar. Journal of
Academic Ethics, 16(3), pp.195-209.
Sheard, J., and et.al 2018, January. Informing students about academic integrity in
programming. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Computing Education
Conference (pp. 113-122).
Solmon, M.A., 2018. Promoting academic integrity in the context of 21st century
technology. Kinesiology Review, 7(4), pp.314-320.
Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A. and Guest, R., 2020. The role of authentic assessment to
preserve academic integrity and promote skill development and
employability. Studies in Higher Education, 45(11), pp.2132-2148.