Importance of Academic and Professional Integrity

This assignment explores the importance of academic and professional integrity in a student's career and for employees. It highlights the differences between previous and current understanding of these concepts, and discusses the application of researching and referencing skills in maintaining ethics and fairness in education and industry.

Academic Integrity, Research & Referencing
Assignment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Definition....................................................................................................................................1
Significance.................................................................................................................................1
Application..................................................................................................................................2
Comparison.................................................................................................................................3
Research......................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
Academic integrity may be defined as the morale code or ethical policy of academia
while as professional integrity may be defined as the fundamental values which an employer
seeks within the employees which they want to hire for the organisation. Present report discusses
about the professional and academic integrity and its importance in academic and professional
career. It also incudes application of academic and professional integrity in education and
industry sectors and comparison of current understanding of abilities, skills and knowledge with
previous understanding of academic and professional integrity.
MAIN BODY
Definition
Any individual which has an integrity is someone who is honest and trustworthy, but for
the students, personal values and morals can reflect the character and credibility. Within the
university, maintaining of academic integrity while earning degree is the representation of true
accomplishment of academic career. Student with an integrity have to work hard in order to earn
their degrees with fairness and honesty (Gilmore, Maher and Feldon, 2016). If, any student
cheats through its academic career, their integrity is compromised and also the value of its degree
and the moral also gets diminished. Professional integrity is an ability to carry out the
professional activities in a professional, ethical and in honest manner. Maintaining professional
integrity and ethical behaviour is very crucial for an individual's personal professional success
and credibility within the business world. Professional integrity is the foundation of the workers
in order to build relationships, trust, improve its performance and to develop effective
interpersonal relationships.
Significance
Student having the academic integrity means that a student is doing a right thing even
when no one is looking at what a student is doing. A student with academic integrity is very
important for various reasons, the most important thing is that having academic integrity simply
means that others can trust the student easily (Chen and Macfarlane, 2015). Also, having
academic integrity is important because it provides the student value for the degree as most of
employer prefer to hire the graduates who has got high academic integrity. Having academic
integrity will add its professional integrity as well and one of the great importance of having
academic integrity is peace of mind by knowing that what a student is doing is the right thing to
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do. After academic integrity comes professional integrity and it is equally important because
having a professional integrity, one can work with ethics and honesty which can result in the
trustworthiness as an employee (PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY, 2019). Having a professional
integrity is essential for growth and advancement for an employee. Having professional integrity
can make an employee an effective leader for the future and can make their work fair and easy.
So, academic and professional integrity is really important which can help an individual
to know and understand the value academic and professional career.
Application
Academic integrity is more often recognised with breach, in case of plagiarism, cheating,
fabrication of data, submitting of the false information, making intentional alterations etc. These
form the violations of integrity (James, 2016). Academic integrity can be applied within the
education sector in following ways:
 Develop a statement for the syllabus which clearly represents the student's position on
academic integrity.
 Provide the students with tutorials on academic integrity or make them to write an essay
or make research on academic integrity.
 Make discussions within the class regarding academic integrity and also discuss the best
practice for making notes and provide information and instructions about how to cite
sources properly which should also include online sources (Williams and Roberts, 2016).
Professional integrity can be applied within the education sector by following ways:
 Showing up for the job on time and every time.
 Employees should note the things which are asked them to do.
 Keeping all promises and if an employee faces the difficulty explain it to others as soon
as possible.
 Employees should focus on its performance.
 Communicate frequently with everyone in order to build relationship and remove doubts
related to integrity of the system (Bretag, 2016).
 Avoiding of misconduct and illegal activities.
 Reviewing of the policy statement in order to ensure that they are consistent with their
actions.
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Comparison
There has been a huge difference between my current understanding and previous
understanding of academic and professional integrity and researching and referencing skills.
Previously I had the limited understanding of academic and professional integrity and I thought
maintaining integrity both professionally and academically is not so important but my current
understanding is that maintain academic and professional integrity is important for the student
and for employee. Academic integrity makes a student to realise the importance of studies and
how to make use of academic integrity and professional integrity in order to maintain its morals
and conducts for its entire career. Previously, I had to face problems in citing the authentic
sources for references and had little knowledge about how to make online references but now I
am able to choose reference from authentic sources and also have the knowledge of how to cite
them properly. Previously, I faced problems due to lack of researching skills like I could not find
the exact source of information on internet and how to collect data and also I could not make
relevancy of the online information but at present I know how to find the exact information and
collect data using various data collection methods. Also, in order to check the relevancy of the
online data, I am now able to use CRAAP test in order to check the relevancy. So, these are the
differences between my previous understanding of knowledge and skills and current
understanding and skills of academic and professional integrity, researching and referencing
skills.
Research
PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.aacrao.org/resources/core-competencies/professional-integrity>.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that professional and academic skills has got huge importance in the
career of a student and for employee, maintaining academic and professional integrity can make
a student a good student and an employee a good employee. Present report also concludes that it
is important to apply academic and professional skills in education and industry sector which can
result in fairness and maintaining ethics in both the sectors.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bretag, T. ed., 2016. Handbook of academic integrity. Singapore: Springer.
Chen, S. and Macfarlane, B., 2015. Academic integrity in China. Handbook of academic
integrity. pp.1-6.
Gilmore, J., Maher, M. and Feldon, D., 2016. Prevalence, Prevention, and Pedagogical
Techniques: Academic Integrity and Ethical Professional Practice Among STEM
Students. Handbook of academic integrity. pp.181-670.
James, C., 2016. Academic Integrity in Legal Education 48. Handbook of Academic Integrity,
p.695.
Williams, J. and Roberts, D., 2016. Academic integrity: Exploring tensions between perception
and practice in the contemporary university. SRHE Report, p.41.
Online
PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.aacrao.org/resources/core-competencies/professional-integrity>.
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