Importance of Academic Integrity in Higher Education and Implications of Academic Misconduct

This report defines the concept of academic integrity and its importance in higher education. It also discusses the implications of academic misconduct and presents a reflection on the challenges faced in producing a game. The report includes references from various books and journals.

BMP3003-1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
SECTION-1.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction to academic Integrity...............................................................................................3
Importance of the Academic Integrity in Higher Education.......................................................3
Implications of academic misconduct.........................................................................................4
SECTION-2.....................................................................................................................................5
Steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the game................................................5
Skills learned this academic year and those emphasized in producing your game.....................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
The academic integrity refers to the freedom provided to the students and their tutors with
respect to the building of new and innovative ideas in an educational setting (Eaton, Crossman,
and Edino, 2019). The present report aims to define the concept of academic integrity and its
importance in the higher education. It also includes the implications of academic misconduct and
also present a reflection in the second part of the study that present the challenges faced by an
individual in carrying out the game.
MAIN BODY
SECTION-1
Introduction to academic Integrity
The academic integrity refers to a providing the students and the staff with the ability to
present their new, innovative and creative ideas among each other. This concept makes an
individual learn to respect the work of other individuals and respect the same. It has been ben
identified that there are certain fundamental values associated with the concept of academic
integrity. These values include honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility and courage. This
mean that an individual must carry out its work related with the study in the most ethical way
and by considering the principles associated with academic integrity.
Importance of the Academic Integrity in Higher Education
It has been identified that the technological advancements are taking place within the
educational sectors on a rapid pace. The advancement of the technology has made it available for
the students to make use of technology in order to gain advantage, knowledge and succeed in
their career (Hagen, and Sander, 2021). The technology has been providing the students with the
required education at affordable prices so that each and every individual can enhance his growth
and development by making use of the technological tools. However, the students can use
technology for carrying out wrongful activities too. Therefore, it is necessary for the tutors to
inculcate the feeling of academic integrity among the students as it will help them in their higher
education and career development. The importance of academic integrity has been explained
below:
Offers opportunity for career development

Academic integrity restricts an individual from carrying our activities such as cheating,
copying the work of others, copy pasting the content in an assignment, deception, collusion,
plagiarism, fabrication. This is so because, all of these activities are known as the academic
misconduct and restraints an individual to use his own mind in order to pass an examination. For
instance, if the students are allowed to cheat in an examination, they will not make an effort in
order to study about their subjects and develop an understanding towards the same. This in turn
will deteriorate their knowledge and understanding about a specific subject (Kyttälä, and et.al
2019). The cheating, collusion and other such activities can help the students in passing an
examination but will not be able to carry out the same practically in their career. Therefore, it can
be said that academic integrity helps in higher education by influencing the students in order to
develop an understanding towards their subject and thus helps them in getting ahead in their
career.
Promotes creativity and innovation
The academic integrity does not allow an individual to make use of ineffective and
unethical practices in order carry out assignments or their exams associated with their field of
study. When an individual is not allowed to cheat, fabricate, make use of others answers or
assignments in order to pass an examination, they will be forced to use their own mind and focus
and study in relation to their respective subjects. This will help the students in enhancing their
knowledge, and encourage them to use their creativity and innovation. This will help them in
their higher education and succeeding their career development.
Implications of academic misconduct
The academic misconduct can be defined as a type of cheating that has been carried out
by a student within the classroom in order to gain marks or to get good grades in the
examination. However, there are certain negative implications associated with academic
misconduct which are as follows:
Inaccurate examination
When the students cheat in the examination, it gets difficult for the tutors to effectively
determine the marks that should be provided to an individual within the examination (Ledbetter-
Cho, and et.al 2018). There are times, when the teacher’s providers the students with good
grades in the exam just because the student has cheated in order to present good answers within
the exam.

Legal consequences
Cheating, plagiarism, and other academic misconducts are considered as crimes and have
their own legal consequences. The academic misconducts are illegal and therefore, if a university
finds any student carrying out any kind of misconduct then they have the authority to report the
same to the investigation department. For the misconduct, the student gets jailed or lifetime
imprisonment, or be penalised by the authority. This can ruin the image of the student, his
family, the university in which he or she was studying. Also, if an individual is proved guilty of
academic misconduct, then their whole career can get destroyed.
Practical concerns
Many times, it has been observed that many individuals get their credentials by academic
dishonesty (McCormick, and et.al 2021). For instance, if an employer employee an individual
whose credentials are fake such as an individual joined a hospital in order to practice medicine
who does not have any knowledge in the required field can create problems for the hospital by
risking the lives of the patients and service users who have enrolled themselves within the
hospital.
Loss of intellectual property
It has been identified that academic dishonesty refers to cheating and copying someone
else’s ideas and work in order to get good grades within the examination. Therefore, the cheating
and plagiarism is considered as a crime and is considered as equivalent to stealing another
person’s property and presenting it in their own name. Therefore, this can have its own negative
consequences.
SECTION-2
Steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the game
I chose to produce a game that was highly interactive, is a lot of fun and the one that
holds the attention of the participants and the audience throughout the game. I prepared a game
that involved 6 tasks in related to the numbers of a dice. This means, each individual had roll the
dice and on the basis of the number they get on the dice, they will have to perform a task in front
of everyone. So, the six tasks associated with each number of the dice were singing a song in
front of the audience, conducting a rapid fire, participating in a quiz, Acting, and Dancing. The
game turned out very joyous, playful and was an interactive experience for the students within

the classroom. However, producing this game was not an easy job. It was a very challenging
task for me.
One of the major difficulty that I found in producing the game initially was to come up
with an idea that will help me engaging each and every individual within the game. It was
difficult for me to identify if everyone will like my game or not. Another challenge for me was to
brainstorm the tasks that I can choose as tasks in order to carry out the game among the students
(Parkinson, and et.al 2022). While choosing the tasks for the game, I had to make sure that the
tasks I have chosen do not hurt the feelings and sentiments of any individual during the game.
Therefore, I had to spend a lot of time in order to choose the correct tasks. One of my task was to
carry out a quiz and also conduct a rapid fire round. For the same, I had to spend a lot of time in
order to select the questions that the student will be able to answer easily. Also, there were many
students that were participating in the game so I had to prepare a range of questions for the
purpose of quiz and the rapid fire round as the same questions cannot be asked to the students
again and again in front of them (Parnther, 2020). Therefore, I chose a variety of questions that
included both questions related to their studies, general knowledge and related to games.
Another difficultly was that in order to prepare the questions associated with the studies, it was
required for me to effectively study and analyse the same so that if someone is unable to answer
any question then I can present my answers with respect to the same. Also, since I was the one
who was conducting the game among the students, it was my responsibility to make sure no
individual tries to win the game by cheating or copying or taking help from others. So, in order
ensure that nobody tries to perform academic misconduct, I was present at all times in order to
monitor all the students while they play the game.
Skills learned this academic year and those emphasized in producing your game
Producing this game was a great learning experience for me. This game helped me in
developing an understanding towards the concept of academic integrity and learn its importance
in the academics, personal and professional life of an individual. While I was making everyone
play the game, I realised how much efforts an individual puts in a particular thing if they are
eager to win and how wrong it would be to them if someone wins by cheating or any other kind
of misconduct. Therefore, I can say that producing this game was helpful to me in order to
increase my knowledge and understanding towards the concept of academic integrity.

Also, I have enhanced my communication skills and also helped me in enhancing my
level of confidence. This game required me to communicate with the participants and the
audience every now and then. It was my responsibility to explain the participants about the
game, how it will be played, the rules and regulations associated with it (Raxmatovna, 2022).
Also, I was the one who was allotting the tasks that were to be performed by the participants
during the game. So, all of these activities influenced me to communicate and interact with the
participants and the audience. This helped me in enhancing my communication skills and helped
me in eliminating my stage fright. The process of preparing this game also helped me in
improving my research and decision making skills. This is so because, before choosing an idea to
develop the game, I had a number of things in my mind which I needed to keep in mind while
planning a game for the participants. I had to prepare a game that was engaging and grabs the
attention of the audience. I wanted to develop a game that was fun and joyous not only for the
participants but also for the audience and at the same time, I also wanted to keep in mind that my
game should be planned in such a way that it does not affects the feelings and sentiments of any
individual in a negative way. Therefore, in order to produce the game, I carried out research
about the different games, identified their positives and the negatives and then chose one that
was the best. Therefore, it can be stated that this helped me enhancing my research and analytical
skills and also helped me in the improvement of my decision making skills.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that in order to improve the efficiency of the
students, it is necessary for them to understand the concept of academic integrity. The students
should be aware of the consequences of the academic misconduct and how it has the potential to
ruin the careers, personal and professional life of an individual. The present study includes a
brief discussion of the importance of the academic integrity and the implication of the academic
misconduct. The second section of the study includes the steps take in order to produce the game
and the skills that the individual has acquired while producing the game.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Eaton, S.E., Crossman, K. and Edino, R., 2019. Academic integrity in Canada: An annotated
bibliography.
Hagen, E. and Sander, C., 2021. Student Voices in Academic Integrity. Canadian Perspectives
on Academic Integrity. 4(2). pp.44-44.
Kyttälä, M., and et.al 2019. Working memory resources in children: stability and relation to
subsequent academic skills. Educational Psychology. 39(6). pp.709-728.
Ledbetter-Cho, K., and et.al 2018. Meta-analysis of tablet-mediated interventions for teaching
academic skills to individuals with autism. Journal of autism and developmental
disorders. 48(9). pp.3021-3036.
McCormick, M.P., and et.al 2021. Long-term effects of social-emotional learning on academic
skills: Evidence from a randomized trial of INSIGHTS. Journal of Research on
Educational Effectiveness. 14(1). pp.1-27.
Parkinson, A.L., and et.al 2022. Collusion is still a tricky topic: student perspectives of academic
integrity using assessment-specific examples in a science subject. Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education, pp.1-13.
Parnther, C., 2020. Academic misconduct in higher education: A comprehensive review. Journal
of Higher Education Policy And Leadership Studies. 1(1). pp.25-45.
Raxmatovna, F.S., 2022. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN
STUDYING. THEORY AND ANALYTICAL ASPECTS OF RECENT RESEARCH. 1(5).
pp.610-613.
1

2