Importance of Academic Integrity in Higher Education

This report discusses the importance of academic integrity in higher education and the implications of academic misconduct. It also includes a reflection on the production of a game related to plagiarism. The report highlights the skills learned in an academic year and those required for creating the game.

Academic Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Academic Integrity......................................................................................................................3
Importance of academic integrity in higher education................................................................4
Implications of academic misconduct.........................................................................................5
Section 2..........................................................................................................................................6
Steps taken and problems encountered in producing the game...................................................6
Skills learned in academic year and those required for creating game........................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills refer to skills that are required for succeeding in academic context of
individual. Academic integrity is concerned with commitment and practice of individuals in
which they demonstrate a behaviour which is moral and ethical in terms of academic practices.
This involves considering what is right and fair in terms of academic performance of individual.
The report will discuss about academic integrity and importance of academic integrity along with
what can be implications of academic misconduct. In this report reflection on game it was
produced in project to will also be included and the name of the game is mastermind which is
related to plagiarism and academic misconduct.
MAIN BODY
Academic Integrity
Honest and moral behaviour of individuals in context of academic performance in an
educational setting and commitment that individual reflect for moral behaviour is known as
academic integrity. Academic integrity is considered very important in academic and educational
context where it is expected that individuals and staff ensure that when they create new ideas
knowledge and work they give required acknowledgement to others for their ideas. Academic
integrity is important because of several reasons among which ensuring that everyone gets credit
and recognition for their work is very important (Morris, 2018). Academic integrity ensures that
students and staff in academic or educational context avoid practices that are known as academic
misconduct. Practices of academic misconduct include plagiarism in which work of others is
presented by individual on their own name. Academic integrity is based on five pillars that are
honesty trust fairness respect and responsibility. Honesty is one of the five pillars of academic
integrity in which individual is expected to act and practice sincerity and ensure that they do not
do anything which is likely to affect rights of others. Trust is concerned with a pillar in which
individuals are expected to trust in other people in their community among with students and
staff is expected to trust in their community.Fairnessis also very important pillar of academic
integrity in which every individual is expected to believe that they are being treated fairly and
they are also expected to treated everyone equally and fairly. This pillar involved that everyone
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in an academic or educational setting is judged on the basis of same standard. Respect is a pillar
of academic integrity in which individual are required to share views and point and student are
expected to respect views and opinion of others. This means that everyone considerations and
views should be respected by students and staff in an academic setting (MacLeod and Eaton,
2020). Responsibility is also a very important pillar of academic integrity according to which
student and staff in academic settings is expected to ensure that they acknowledge their agency
in accountability and actions.
Importance of academic integrity in higher education
Protecting academic credibility of university
Academic credibility of university or education institution is significantly dependent on
how practices are carried out in an university. Fair and acceptable practices are very important
for creating and managing academic credibility of University and this is why academic integrity
is very important for that academic credibility of university or education institute can be
protected. This is because if student and staff in a university carry out academic practices which
are not ethical and based on moral principles it is likely to damage academic credibility of
University.
Protecting achievements of students and staff
Student and staff create new ideas and work in academic context and in order to protect
their achievements from those who might get credit for their work academic integrity is very
important (Ramdani, 2018). In absence of academic integrity others can present work of student
and staff on their name however when academic integrity is practiced possibility of such
practices are limited.
Protecting interest of those who do not cheat
It is very important to consider that mainly individual in academic setting do not cheat
and in order to ensure that their interest remain protected practicing academic integrity is very
important. In absence of academic integrity it becomes very easy for individuals to undertake
academic misconduct or wrong practices in academic context and this harm interest of those who
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do not cheat. Absence of academic integrity can also mitigate difference in those who do not
cheat and those who cheat purposefully.
Enabling students to learn through best practices
This is also a very important reason for academic integrity in higher educational
institutions and University ensure that students in their University learn through best practices.
They learn and understand importance of academic integrity and why it is important to give
credit to those who have created work and avoid presenting work of others on their own name
(Fass-Holmes, 2017). Students in this also learn to give credit to others through this those who
deserve to get credit get their credit for their work.
Implications of academic misconduct
Academic misconduct is an act or practice in which individuals undertake practices that
are not in accordance with moral principles and ethics of academic integrity. Academic
misconduct mainly include not given required for adequate acknowledgement to original creator
of work. In addition to this academic misconduct also includes presenting work of others on
name of individual who is creating another work.
Penalty
Penalty is first and most important implication of academic misconduct in which those
who undertake academic misconduct are imposed with penalty by Institute as a punishment for
their wrong doing.
Reduction in Grade
Every student is entitled to certain grade for creating their work and high grade of
students reflect better performance of individual in terms of academic. However, as a result of or
as an implication of academic misconduct grade of student might get reduced by educational
institutions and University.
No credit
Punishment or implication of academic misconduct depends on nature and importance of
academic misconduct (Awasthi, 2019). However, in certain situations staff or student involved in
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academic misconduct might get no credit for the work if they found you have done academic
misconduct.
Suspension
Suspension is also implication of academic misconduct in which individuals are likely to
face a punishment in which they are suspended from university or educational Institute.
Suspension involves that for a certain time determined by policies or authority those who found
to have done academic misconduct are not allowed to participate in activities of University.
Section 2
Steps taken and problems encountered in producing the game
Following is the process of all the states that were included in developing and producing
game for plagiarism. These are five-step identified in developing plagiarism game-
Determining theme of Game
First step that was taken to produce game determination of theme of the game on the
basis of which the game is to be produced. Theme determined for the game was plagiarism in
which plagiarism bye participant was tested (Gibson and et.al., 2017). The theme of game was
based on context in which the game is being developed and as the context was academic integrity
and the theme determined was related to academic integrity and academic misconduct.
Determining name of Game
Second step taken for developing game was determining name of game and in this
several names were considered for game and finally the name that was determined was Master
Minds. The name was based on theme of game in which individuals participating in game were
required to make use of internet access and answer questions given to them. Later answer given
by them was to be checkedfor plagiarism and winner was the one with lowest percentage of
plagiarism. And the one who is able to keep percentage of Plagiarism is considered as
mastermind and this is how name of the game was determined.
Planning Game
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In third step complete game was planned and documented in order to develop clarity of
how game will work (Demmans Epp, Akcayir and Phirangee, 2019). This also included starting
and ending of the game and how it will work in terms of participation of participants.
Planning nature of participation
This was concerned with determination of how many individual will be able to
participate in game and what will be the nature of the participation. This means how individuals
will have to play the game and subsequently how the winner of game will be determined.
Testing working of game
Once everything was determined regarding game finally game was tested in terms of how
it will work and whether it is actually workable or not. During this step it was found that the
game developed is perfectly workable and individual can participate and test their skills in terms
of plagiarism.
Challenges faced regarding development of game were mainly based on determination of
different element of game. This means how the game will work and how many participants
should be allowed to participate in game. In addition to the determination of Plagiarism checker
was also a challenge because types of checkers are there and to determine which one is
appropriate for the game was a very big challenge.
Along with this planning for the game was a challenge because there was no previous
knowledge about how a game should be developed and how it is executed (Cook-Sather, Abbot
and Felten, 2019). Challenge was also experience in terms of lake of knowledge about designing
and developing a game concerned with academic integrity and plagiarism.
Skills learned in academic year and those required for creating game
During the academic year many skills were learned and these skills were related to
different aspects of academic. In this year I learnt about written and oral communication skill and
how it is important for academic success to have effective communication skills. This means that
in order to perform effectively in terms of academic communication skill is very important and
in this academic writing skill that is a part of written communication skill is must. This is
because without having adequate academic writing skill individual cannot reflect their
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knowledge in academics (Klebanov and et.al., 2017). Planning was also one of the very
important skill that I learnt during this year and this was also a very important skills for the
game. This means that during the game planning skill was really helpful for me that I was able to
plan a game based on plagiarism. Planning skill mainly involved how an individual can forecast
starting and completion of an activity by dividing different phases of activity. Time Management
skill was also one of the skill that I learned during the academic year and in this skill individuals
become able to manage their time so that they are able to complete all their activities in a given
time why is Managing required quality and efficiency for the work for given task. Time
management skill was also important for producing game as the game was to be produced in a
given time and this requires that all the activities are completed in a fixed time. In addition to this
is also important that all the activities are given required time so that they can be completed
managing efficiency required for the game. This is because in case time management is not
appropriate it might lead to inadequate allocation of time for activities which in turn reduce time
increase required time for different activities leading to wastage of time or shortage of time.
Time management was very important for producing game (Sharif and Zainuddin, 2017). I also
learnt problem solving skill during the academic year and this was a very important skill that I
learnt and was highly important for producing game in which iron found different problems that
could only be solved through having effective problem solving skill.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that for effective academic
performance of academic integrity is very important. Academic integrity include considering
there and right practices for academic performance of individual that are ethical and based on
moral principles. In this report implications of academic misconduct were also outlined in which
individual can be reduced and to a very great extent they can also be suspended from University
as an implication of their academic misconduct.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Awasthi, S., 2019. Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct: A Systematic Review. DESIDOC
Journal of Library & Information Technology, 39(2).
Cook-Sather, A., Abbot, S. and Felten, P., 2019. Legitimating reflective writing in
SoTL:“Dysfunctional illusions of rigor” revisited. Teaching & Learning Inquiry. 7(2).
pp.14-27.
Demmans Epp, C., Akcayir, G. and Phirangee, K., 2019. Think twice: exploring the effect of
reflective practices with peer review on reflective writing and writing quality in
computer-science education. Reflective Practice. 20(4). pp.533-547.
Fass-Holmes, B., 2017. International Students Reported for Academic Integrity Violations:
Demographics, Retention, and Graduation. Journal of International Students. 7(3).
pp.664-669.
Gibson, A and et.al., 2017, March. Reflective writing analytics for actionable feedback.
In Proceedings of the seventh international learning analytics & knowledge
conference (pp. 153-162).
Klebanov, B.B and et.al., 2017. Reflective writing about the utility value of science as a tool for
increasing stem motivation and retention–Can AI help scale up?. International Journal
of Artificial Intelligence in Education. 27(4). pp.791-818.
MacLeod, P.D. and Eaton, S.E., 2020. The paradox of faculty attitudes toward student violations
of academic integrity. Journal of Academic Ethics. 18(4). pp.347-362.
Morris, E.J., 2018. Academic integrity matters: five considerations for addressing contract
cheating. International journal for educational integrity.14(1). pp.1-12.
Ramdani, Z., 2018. Construction of academic integrity scale. International Journal of Research
Studies in Psychology. 7(1). pp.87-97.
Sharif, A.M. and Zainuddin, S.Z., 2017. Students' perceptions of their reflective essay writing
experience and teacher feedback comments. Indonesian Journal of Applied
Linguistics. 6(2). pp.204-212.
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