Developing Academic Skills: A Game to Avoid Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

This report explores the strategies and techniques for developing academic skills and introduces a game called 'Pladect' that helps students avoid plagiarism and academic misconduct. The game aims to educate and entertain students while promoting academic integrity.

Poster

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK ONE......................................................................................................................................3
A game for students that develops strategies to avoid plagiarism and academic misconduct3
TASK TWO.....................................................................................................................................4
(1) Instructions for playing the game “Pladect”....................................................................4
(2) Importance of Academic Integrity at University .............................................................5
(3) Reflection on the skills used to produce the game “Pladect”..........................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Academic Skills are required to make students a proficient learners. These includes core
skills like writing, presentation, practice, analysing etc. Academic Skills are acquired not only to
become efficient learner but also they are useful in achieving success in any career. These skills
helps to improve the ability to interact and participate in the competitions. Attaining academic
skills will led to attain long term goals effectively and efficiently (Gamboni, 2017). Theses skills
strategies are considered as an approach to learning and helps students to understand the author's
mind. Accordingly, programs are organised to foster academic skills within students. Practising
and developing these skills will ultimately help to perform better in the organisation. Whereas,
Academic Integrity led student to devise their own idea and innovation while respecting the work
of others. Further, it demonstrate and acknowledge the contribution of work done by others.
Thus, the report examines the strategies and techniques for developing academic skills
accompanied by a game design for avoiding plagiarism and academic misconduct.
TASK ONE
A game for students that develops strategies to avoid plagiarism and academic misconduct
Plagiarism is one of the academic misconduct which is becoming rampant with the pace
of technology. Academic Misconduct refers to gaining or attempting to gain academic
advantage. Such misconduct occurs when someone misrepresent others work by doing cheating,
copying from web, etc. Further plagiarism is the perfect example of academic misconduct. It
means to take the credit of others work without acknowledging them. Students nowadays submit
the work which is not done by them thus deceiving the rules of academic skills. In fact they are
believing on finding shortcuts for completing their work which is an unacademic step. The
problem of plagiarism is getting worse and thus, effective strategies are need to be formulated in
order to avoid such academic misconduct (Richter, 2019) .
In this respect a game is designed that helps to devise strategies to avoid academic
misconduct involving plagiarism. The game enables the students to acquire academic skills and
involve them to devise their own academic strategies. The idea of the game is to educate and
facilitate students towards the academic integrity through entertainment. Further punishment
offered in the game also focuses on improving the academic skills of the students. The name of
game is “Pladect” meaning detection of plagiarism and it aims to detect plagiarism as well as

other academic misconducts and helps student to attain the academic integrity (Eaglesfield,
Mullard and Stan, 2018).
How the game works
The concept is like Luddo, guiding the students to the path of academic integrity.
Students can play in pairs, with maximum limit of four players. The guide shall portray the list of
numbers along with the questions in respect of the concepts, rules of the academic integrity.
Further the guide specifies the punishment giving two choices either to provide additional chance
to the next player or to answer the realistic scenario formed by opposite players. Players will roll
the dice and according to the number occur answer the question listed in the guide. Correct
answer will led players to move ahead in the game and further for the wrong answers the players
will be held with the punishments mentioned in the guide. The option of pairing players will
provide help to reduce the pressure to answer the questions correctly. The player or team in case
of pair, wins on reaching home point. The games takes approximately 20 to 25 minutes and the
game is aimed to be short as to keep the interest of students. Because longer the game lessen the
interest of the students. After completion of game, the students are asked to voluntarily rate the
game by giving stars out of five on the basis of academic integrity they acquire.
TASK TWO
(1) Instructions for playing the game “Pladect”
As the basic aim of a game is to detect academic misconduct and allowing students to
take appropriate strategies to avoid such misconducts and plagiarism (Dindar, 2018). The
instructions in respect of game are specified in the booklet guiding students to play the game.
These are as follows:-
 The game is to be played by maximum number of four players. Pairing is allowed in
order to lessen the burden of students in giving answers to the questions.
 Two dice shall be rolled at the same time.
 The questions will be according to the number occur on dice, the list of questions with
the respective numbers are mentioned in the guide booklet.
 Along with questions the booklet contains the punishments which are to be entertained by
the students giving wrong answers. The punishment offers two alternative choices as
specified above which the players are required to choose among them.

 The time limit for answering the question is of maximum one minute. The player will
lose the chance and it will be passed to the next player if not answered within the time
limit.
 The player shall be dismissed from the game if caught cheating or doing any misconduct.
(2) Importance of Academic Integrity at University
Academic Integrity provides an opportunity to the students to devise their own ideas and
skills while acknowledging the work of others. In simple words, being honest in carrying out
academic skills and to others. Learning cannot be acquired by representing the work of others.
The academic misconduct will led student to step back from acquiring academic skills
(Mädamürk, Kikas and Palu, 2018). The academic integrity can be acquired by:-
 By not copying the work of others
 ethical practice while conducting academic research
 acknowledging the usage of information and source it comes from
 ensuring reliability on your research by providing true information
 Conducting research under the regulations of university
It is the duty to University to credit and acknowledge the contributions of its students. For
effective learning university need to ensure its quality in respect of teaching and learning. The
question on quality of learning raises when university allows or engages itself in such academic
misconducts. The academic integrity helps to build future employment. If students fails to
represent academic integrity the consequences could be harsh, student may lose their dream job
or career can be destroyed if they face legal action.
The University in order to maintain the quality of learning and teaching formulates
policies and strategies involving guidelines in respect of academic integrity. These policies are
required to be followed by the staff and students. Further if the staff and students fail to adhere
academic integrity as required by university, the respective will be held liable and penalised for
such misconduct (Alresheed and et. al., 2018). The penalties can be failing them in semester or
expelling from university, applied accordingly to the seriousness of the case.
(3) Reflection on the skills used to produce the game “Pladect”
Designing a game to avoid academic misconduct was a daunting task, but I am feeling
glad in grabbing this opportunity. As the report helped me to understand the importance of
academic integrity by eliminating the misconduct involving plagiarism. I have done a valuable

research on academic skills in order to design the game. The game made me learned about the
skills which are required to gain successful career for long term. I felt that the idea of designing
game excelled my critical thinking skills. Also while undergoing with the idea of designing
game, I got familiar with way of doing an appropriate research which seemed helpful in my
report. It further improvised my knowledge in respect of trendy games and thus formulated an
effective game. I got enough confidence in implementing my management skills in producing
game.
It gave me not only the knowledge of programming languages but also framed strong
mind in respect of gaming. It improvised my ability to work as a team. Such skills devised a
passion for games which earlier was lack in me. Further, the challenges which I have faced in
producing game was the lack of technology skills and insufficient knowledge about the trending
games. The hindrances which I have faced resulted into a positive change in me. Thus, the idea
of designing game was overall beneficial and imprinted a positive impact on me.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, academic integrity are important to achieve
the successful career for long term. The academic skills are required to become an effective and
efficient learners. The strategies need to be formulated to avoid academic misconduct. Academic
misconduct is considered as such conduct which is against the rules of academic. The report
examined one of the academic misconduct, which is Plagiarism. Accordingly the game is
designed accompanied by its instructions called “Pladect”, to eliminate plagiarism and other
misconducts. The university is focusing on improving the quality of learning and teaching and
acquiring corrective measures to eliminate academic misconduct. Further penalising the staff or
student going against the regulations formed by the university. Thus, the student need to devise
own idea by not adapting misconduct practices in doing their work.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alresheed and et. al., 2018. Academic and related skills interventions for autism: A 20-year
systematic review of single-case research. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental
Disorders. 5(4). pp.311-326.
Dindar, M., 2018. An empirical study on gender, video game play, academic success and
complex problem solving skills. Computers & Education. 125. pp.39-52.
Eaglesfield, S., Mullard, A. and Stan, I., 2018. Academic skills development steps into the
spotlight: experiences of developing a foundation year.
Gamboni, V., 2017. Developing academic librarians’ skills in e-book services through
Participatory Action Research. Information and Learning Science.
Mädamürk, K., Kikas, E. and Palu, A., 2018. Calculation and word problem-solving skill
profiles: relationship to previous skills and interest. Educational psychology. 38(10).
pp.1239-1254.
Richter, K., 2019. English-medium instruction and pronunciation: Exposure and skills
development. Multilingual Matters.