Academic Integrity and Misconduct: Importance, Pillars, and Implications

This report covers the description of academic integrity, its importance in higher education, and the implications of academic misconduct. It also discusses the five pillars of academic integrity and the skills learned through a game design project.

Further Academic Skills

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Section 1...........................................................................................................................................3
Description of academic integrity...............................................................................................3
Importance of academic integrity at higher education................................................................4
Implications of academic misconduct.........................................................................................5
Section 2...........................................................................................................................................6
Steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the game................................................6
Skills learnt by performing this project of game design.............................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
Academic integrity is the expectation of both students and teachers with each other that
they will act politely, honestly, follow their roles and responsibilities with each other and many
things (Awasthi, 2019). This will help to learn those behaviour by students which help them to
maintain their discipline and make them behave appropriately in schools and universities. The
following report will covers description of academic integrity, importance of academic integrity
in higher education and implication of academic misconduct steps and difficulties encountered in
producing the game and the reflection on the skills which have been learned in producing the
game.
Main Body
Section 1
Description of academic integrity
Academic integrity are those behaviours, norms and values which help to maintain proper
discipline at academic time. In short, it means to apply those practices which help a student to
learn their responsibilities and roles as a student and behave with honesty in their schools and
universities. It is the way which will define the quality of teaching and learning (Cyranoski,
2018). It is not only followed by students in the universities but it should be followed by teachers
also where they must see their students equality and treat them equally without discriminating in
providing marks in exams. There are five pillar of academic integrity which are mentioned
below-
Pillar 1- Honesty
It is essential for student that they will show their honesty in their academics and submit
their own projects and assignments by showing their efforts. It is essential for them to convey
right message to their teachers.
Pillar 2- Trust
It is essential for both teachers and students to build a trust with each other so that
students will follow teachers instruction to develop personal and professional skills and enhance
their knowledge. Students are also required to gain the trust of teachers by submitting their work
and projects on time and making sure that they will submit their project to teachers without any
academic misconduct such as plagiarism.

Pillar 3- Fairness
It is essential for the teacher to treat their very student fairly and provide them marks on
the basis of their actual performance instead of their favouritism. On the other hand, students are
also required to treat fairly with each other and help each other to complete their task.
Pillar 4- Respect
It is also essential that the students will respect their teachers and colleagues and talk
politely with each other. They must mitigate harsh behaviour and rude behaviour which reflect
disrespect for others (Liao and et. al., 2018). On the other hand, teachers are also required to
respect their students and their efforts of performing their academic works. It is essential for a
student that they will listen appropriately to each other's point of view and respect their ideas and
make them correct in such a way which will not reflect that they were disrespecting their idea.
Pillar 5- Responsibility
It is also essential for students to follow their responsibilities as a student and perform all
those activity which will help them to develop their skills for professional career. On the other
hand, they must know what are their main responsibilities toward their teachers, colleagues,
other authorities in their universities.
Importance of academic integrity at higher education
Academic integrity is important at higher education because this is the last stage of
students to learn the skills and behaviour which they require in their professional life. After
higher education they are going to start their professional career and in case the individual did
not perform ethically than the organisation will terminate the employee from the organisation.
Hence, the academic integrity helps to learn about all the skills, habits and behaviour which will
help a student to develop for their professional career (Ahmed, 2018). Here, they can learn
honesty, trust worthy, fairness and many others which can help them to gain high reputation in
professional career. On the other hand, academic integrity can be learnt by students well in
higher education only because here they have teachers who can guide them and even correct
them for their mistakes and misconducts and help them to clear their understanding that what all
disadvantage they are stepping in by conducting any misconduct or behave improperly.
Academic integrity also help the universities to develop their reputation in the society and further
help them to increase their admission applications. Few of the importance of academic integrity
for students are mentioned below-

 Academic integrity helps to learn the skills and knowledge which are required for future
success of a student.
 It will help to create trust between peers and teachers.
 It is also important to know the ethical principles for a student.
 It is also important to earn the right to take full credit to complete the task without any
error.
 It helps to create the habit of self reliance.
Implications of academic misconduct
Academic misconduct is the action or behaviour of an individual which represent
unethical way of behaving at university and try to complete the projects and assignments with
short cuts such as copy and paste (Birks and et. al., 2018). It should be avoided by the student
because it is considered as unethical behaviour by any student. There are different kinds of
academic misconduct which are mentioned below-
Plagiarism- It is the type of academic misconduct which occurs when a individual copy
someone's assignment and project and represent it their own in front of whole class. This is the
way of taking credit for those work which is not done by the person who is taking credit. When a
student copy from internet sources than also it is considered as plagiarism.
Cheating in exams- This is also one of the basic type of academic misconduct where
students cheat in exams where a student look some other students work during exam and try to
copy their answer instead of writing their own.
Self plagiarism- it is a type of academic misconduct where a student submit their own
work more than one time without taking permission from instructor. This is unethical way of
performing any academic activity (Sotiriadou and et. al., 2020). This is done by students in the
situation when teachers provide similar kind of project two or more times so that students will
understand the concept clearly but students mislead it and find it as a short cut to represent their
own project again which they have shown to teacher earlier.
Talking rudely and having aggressive tone- It is also academic misconduct where a
student behave badly in the class and talk rudely with teachers and with other class mates.
Having aggressive tone while communicating with teachers also shows that the student is
disrespecting teacher and it is also academic misconduct.

Giving excuses for not completing the work- Most of the students give excuses in the
classes for not completing their work on time and due to this they submit their projects after due
date which is not the ethically and morally correct. A student is required to complete all the
given task on time and in case the task is not completed on time than student is required to speak
the truth instead of giving excuses and blaming on others. Accepting mistakes is good and it can
be corrected as soon as possible.
Students are advised to avoid academic misconduct because it can harm their career.
Students caught to perform academic misconduct are required to pay penalties and universities
can also suspend them for conducting academic misconduct continuously even after giving
warnings (Awasthi, 2019). Secondly, this will also damage the self esteem and reputation of
student when teachers point out them for not conducting those activities which are unfair and this
will further decrease their self morale and motivation. Hence, it is good that the students can
avoid academic misconduct and learn good behaviour.
Section 2
Steps taken and difficulties encountered in producing the game
I had faced many difficulties while completing the project and making game and few of the
difficulties are mentioned below-
Issue of coordinating with team members- I had faced issues of coordinating with my
team members while completing this project. The point of views and thoughts are different for
different group members and coordinating well with their available skills and knowledge is
tough. I had analysed this issue as soon as possible so that it will not impacting bad upon
submission of this project. Hence, I analyse the skills and talents of each group member and
assign them task related to their expertise and specialization. Hence, I coordinate well listen the
point of view of others appropriately.
Ineffective IT skills- I had also faced issues in completing this project especially those
task which is related to IT like coding and etc. I am a management student hence, coding for the
game is tough for me. Hence, to mitigate this issue I communicate with my teacher and clear my
all doubts of coding with them so that I will complete my project well without any error.
Arranging required resources- It is also tough for me to manage all the required
resources to complete this game project. Here, I analyse the resources and list out those resources

which are most important for completing the project and try to arrange them in minimum cost to
save cost. Secondly, I also look that no one will waste the available resources for unproductive
activities. Hence, I make sure that all available resources will utilize appropriately for productive
activity to produce game.
Ineffective plan for game- It is also tough for me to design the appropriate plan for the
game. I am unable to recognize what all are basic requirements for designing the game and from
where I will make all arrangements. Hence, to mitigate this issue I communicate with expertise
of game designers and also communicate with my teachers to analyse a appropriate plan for the
game design project. They help me to show direction to analyse whether I am doing it well or not
to achieve the success.
Skills learnt by performing this project of game design
There are various kinds of skills which I had learned from the project of game design and these
skills are mentioned below-
Communication skill- I had learned communication skill while performing the activities
for this project where I have communicated with my team members and listen their point of
views appropriately and make them understand clearly about the aim and objectives of working
together. Hence, I share those information in such as way which will make my team to
understand my words clearly. I also make sure that I will convey them complete and proper
message so that they will conduct their part of work appropriately.
Team working skills- I had also learnt team working skill by managing my team well
and make them understand how they have to work to achieve single goal. I get to know that
while working in a team it is essential to listen what others are sharing and what are their point of
view because many times team members will provide effective idea to achieve team goal.
Leadership skill- While completing this project I also learnt leadership skill where I get
to know that how I can influence my team members well to complete their task. I also motivate
them and solve their quarries to achieve success. I resolve the conflicts between two or more
members of my team mate. I focus on managing all resources appropriately. Hence, I had learnt
leadership skill.

Conclusion
From the above information it is concluded that academic integrity are the behaviour,
practices, values and morals of student which help them to gain good reputation in the
universities and schools. This will help students to learn ethical behaviour which further help
them to learn how they should behave in their professional career. On the other hand, academic
misconduct are those activities and practices which are unethical to perform in student's career
like plagiarism, cheating in exams and many others. This all academic misconduct should be
avoided.

References
Books and journals
Ahmed, K., 2018. Student Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty in a Private Middle Eastern
University. Higher Learning Research Communications, 8(1), p.n1.
Awasthi, S., 2019. Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct: A Systematic Review. DESIDOC
Journal of Library & Information Technology, 39(2).
Birks, M. and et. al., 2018. Exploring the paradox: A cross-sectional study of academic
dishonesty among Australian nursing students. Nurse education today, 65, pp.96-101.
Cyranoski, D., 2018. China introduces sweeping reforms to crack down on academic
misconduct. Nature, 558(7709), pp.171-172.
Liao, Q.J. and et. al., 2018. Perceptions of Chinese biomedical researchers towards academic
misconduct: a comparison between 2015 and 2010. Science and engineering
ethics, 24(2), pp.629-645.
Sotiriadou, P. and et. al., 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.