The Critical Role of Academic Integrity in Higher Education Studies

This essay discusses the importance of academic integrity in universities, defining it as acting with honesty, trust, fairness, and responsibility. It highlights that academic integrity is fundamental for learning, research, and teaching, fostering independence of ideas and creativity while respecting others' work and avoiding plagiarism. The essay further reflects on the academic skills used to produce a game called 'Moral Roles,' emphasizing writing, time management, and creativity. The game aims to improve students' understanding of academic integrity and plagiarism avoidance. It concludes with a list of references for the sources used, emphasizing the ethical considerations within academic environments.

Further Academic Skills
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An explanation of why academic integrity at University is so important
Academic integrity refers to the expectation which students, researches, members
and teachers have to act with honesty, trust, fairness and responsibilities. If the
academic integrity is breached it is called as academic misconduct.
It is the fundamental for learning, research and teaching as well in universities. It is
important in the universities as it allows the students and teachers the independence
to ideas and creativity as well as maintaining appropriate respect and
acknowledgement for others (Muhammad. and et.al., 2020).
Students are a part of academic community when in university, which develops and
improves new ideas. It teaches how to interpret and represent ideas of other people
and reuse them for own purpose in order to produce academic works. The most
important part of integrity is to re-use the ideas but avoiding plagiarism through
appropriately acknowledging them and rephrasing them. Plagiarism refers to taking
ideas and writings of another person and presenting them as own. It can deprivation
of learning and affects the relationships with students and their teachers.
Academic integrity is important as it is supports the representation of academic
values by behaviours like the maintenance of academic standards, rigor and honesty
in research and academic studies (Ramdani, 2018).
It is also important as it concentrates on controlling plagiarism in students. It helps
the students to develop their analytical and other academic skills. Breaching the
academic misconduct will bring negative outcomes and the students will not receive
knowledge or learning at all.
A summary of your reflection on the skills used to produce the game
In the game, I have used a number of academic skills. These skills have
helped in creating a game which is called as moral role. Academic skills such as
writing has been used to create and document the game and representing it to
others. This skill is the primary skill which is taught throughout the life of students.
Another skill which is used is Time management skill. Through the use of this skill I
have been able to create the game project within the specified time frame and before
deadlines. Writing skills has also been used to writing down the structure and design
of the game.
However the most important skill which was used to produce the game was
creativity skills. Creativity skills were used to produce a game which is based on the
similar topic but is unique from others. Through creativity skill I was able to bring
creativity and innovation and represent it to others. All these skills are included in
academic skills and professional skills which help in future professional practices.
Questions
What is academic integrity?
Answers:

1. Academic integrity refers to the moral code and ethical code of conduct in
academics.
2. Academic integrity is the policy which supports the avoidance of unethical
practices such as cheating, contract cheating and plagiarism in academic
environment (MacLeod, and Eaton, 2020).
3. In universities students are a part of community which helps in sharing and
developing the ideas. It teaches people to interpret and present other people’s
ideas but with acknowledgement to produce own academic work. All this is
called academic integrity.
4. Through academic integrity plagiarism and cheating is eliminated through
appropriately acknowledging the work of others.
5. Academic integrity is the expectation of teachers from their students to act
with trust, fairness and responsibility in academic community.
6. Ellis and et.al., (2020)states that academic integrity refers to putting the values of
ethics into practice through being honest in the acts of academics such as
writing being done in university.
7. Academic integrity is the fundamental of research, teaching and learning in
universities.
8. Academic integrity is making ethical decision making and following directions.
9. Academic integrity means being honest to own self and as well to others.
Game name: Moral roles
The Moral Role is a game through which students can improve their skills and
knowledge on plagiarism as an academic misconduct
Objective of the game
The objective of this game is to understand the value of academic integrity and
avoiding plagiarism or any other academic misconduct for performing in exams and
assignments as well.
Rules: Not looking sideways
Starting the game
In the game 10 people can participate at one time. One person will have the
questions and others will have all the answer of the questions. Every student will
have different answers for the same question.
Gameplay
The person holding the question will chose one of the persons who have answers
randomly from the remaining 9 players.

Then the player will chose one answer from all the answers which they think is the
most appropriate answer for the question being asked. Then the player will write
down the answer in their own answers ensuring that the answer remains same but
the words and sentences are not same. Other players will see their answers and
write them in their own words.
At the end the players who clearly depict their answers and use the least matching
words and sentences will get 10 points and the other players will get 9, 8, 7, and so
on to the players according to their answers.
The game continues and for 5 times.
After that the next round starts. Here everyone reveals their answers with other
players choosing and writing down their answers.
The game will continue until all the answers have changes and sentences have differ
from the initial answers.
Finishing the game
The winner will the layer who have highest scores in the game.
Skills used to produce the game
 Academic skills
 Time management skills
 Writing skills
 Creativity skills
A list of references for the sources used

Books and journals
Abdalla, M. and Abdalla, M., 2021, July. The Grey Hoodie Project: Big tobacco, big tech, and the
threat on academic integrity. In Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics,
and Society (pp. 287-297).
Amigud, A., Arnedo-Moreno, J., Daradoumis, T. and Guerrero-Roldan, A.E., 2017. Using learning
analytics for preserving academic integrity. International Review of Research in Open and
Distributed Learning: IRRODL. 18(5). pp.192-210.
Denisova-Schmidt, E., 2017. The challenges of academic integrity in higher education: Current trends
and prospects.
Denisova-Schmidt, E., 2018. Corruption, the lack of academic integrity and other ethical issues in
higher education: What can be done within the Bologna process?. In European higher
education area: The impact of past and future policies (pp. 61-75). Springer, Cham
Ellis, C. and et.al., 2020. Does authentic assessment assure academic integrity? Evidence from
contract cheating data. Higher Education Research & Development. 39(3). pp.454-469.
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.
Muhammad, A. and et,al., 2020. Factors affecting academic integrity in E-learning of Saudi Arabian
Universities. An investigation using Delphi and AHP. IEEE Access,. 8. pp.16259-16268.
Ramdani, Z., 2018. Construction of academic integrity scale. International Journal of Research
Studies in Psychology. 7(1). pp.87-97.