Exploring Academic Integrity: Reflections on a Game Project in HE

This report examines the significance of academic integrity within higher education, emphasizing its role in fostering trust and ethical conduct among students, teachers, and researchers. It analyzes the implications of academic misconduct, including social and legal consequences, and explores the importance of honesty, respect, and responsibility in academic pursuits. Furthermore, the report reflects on the development of skills, such as communication, decision-making, and leadership, acquired during an academic year and applied in the creation of a game project designed to educate students about plagiarism. The challenges encountered during game production are discussed, highlighting the practical application of academic lessons in a real-world context.

Individual Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analysing the importance of academic integrity in higher education.........................................3
Implication of the academic misconduct.....................................................................................5
Steps taken and the difficulties encountered in producing the game...........................................6
Skills that the academic year made me learn and helped me in producing my game..................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Academic integrity is an integral part of the academics which plays an important role in
maintaining and building the trust levels among the entire academic community which includes
the teachers, students, the research staff and other staff community working within the academic
organization. It is an utmost requirement of academic integrity that these staff members develop
trust by working fairly, maintain honesty along with following all the rules and fulfilling all the
responsibilities that are required for the overall professional development of students along with
teachers. Academic integrity helps in developing the new skills within the students by sharing
knowledge using creative ideas and respecting others work by supporting them (Gottardello,
Karabag,2020). The report will illustrate the importance of academic integrity in the field of
higher education along the with highlighting the impact of academic misconduct. The report will
further highlight the development of academic skills learnt at the time doing creating game
project in the reflection form.
MAIN BODY
Analysing the importance of academic integrity in higher education
Academic integrity plays an important part in building the trust levels among the students,
teachers and other research teams working within the educational organisation. It helps in
developing new skills along with respecting the work and new ideas of other people which leads
to overall development of students as well as teachers. It is important for the educational
institute, students and teachers (Garwood, 2022).
Helps in developing new ideas :
Academic integration creates a platform in where new ideas are shared various students and
teachers which helps others to learn and adopt these ideas. The learner gets a knowledge about
various new topics and assessment provided at the educational institutes by analysing the new
creative ideas of other students. It also helps in acknowledgement of a persons' idea by giving
them the credits on discovering new ideas and knowledge gained is shared among the students
which helps in their further development. The institutions play an important by providing the
students with various assessment and conduction of quizzes which helps in improving the
knowledge of the students along with increasing the thinking skills of the students by
participating in complex quiz competitions. It creates a responsibility on the teachers as well as

students to take part in the competitions by fair means and helps in avoiding unfair means. Any
unethical behaviour by teachers or students creates a bad reputation of the educational institute.
Academic integrity at higher education helps to provide the platform to support the innovative
works and intellectual concept by providing the credits to the people which helps in avoiding the
plagiarism. This helps in building the dignity and honesty of the students towards their
University. The respect for various people help in developing strong bonds between them and
helps in improving the academic performance of the students with the providing correct
knowledge which helps in them in the future. The universities are required to keep the
information about each student safe and secure and other results safe which helps in maintaining
the privacy policy for the university.
Helps in self development : the academic integrity between the students of the higher education
will help in enhancing their skills as well as knowledge as the integrity says that student must be
honest and trustworthy in relation to it's higher education, by the help of assignment and having
integrity towards it will help the student in creating creative idea's, it will enhance the student
innovation and the practical knowledge that is necessary in the completion of task, the
completion of task by self will help the student in learning the topic in brief which will help out
the student in the future.
Helps in creativity : a content can be easily copied in the current technology anyone can even
copy the work of other without even getting known to any other person, but what academic
honesty or integrity tell is to be honest and positive towards the work that was given. As copying
up the assignment or task may give the students full marks and big A+ sign on the certificate but
it will never give the student the creativity, innovation and the knowledge that the assessment
needed, so preparing up the assignment by self without cheating will help the student in forming
its own ideas and it will let the student know it's favourite field in the higher education.
Helps the university : the way the students and the professors works in the university directly
affects the performance of university in front of outsiders and it impacts the admission process of
the university, the well and successful work done by a professor will not only increase his own
fame but it will also increase the name of the college in front of others, which will directly
attracts the students and their parents because of the development of the good integrity in the
higher education (Cronan, Mullins, Douglas, 2018).

Implication of the academic misconduct
The implication or the consequences of the academic dishonesty is divided in two parts and these
parts are regarded as the legal consequences and the social consequences further in these
consequences there comes more sub parts of these consequences these are in brief as follows :-
Social consequences
One time misconduct will lead the student in forming a nature of dishonesty and it devaluate it's
skills to understand or learn because what the student will think is how to cheat, the nature of
cheating says that the students who always cheats in the academic will cheat at work, cheat in
personal life and cheat with family (Keefer, Brown, Rothschild,2020).
Loss of the intellectual property
The dishonesty in the academic like plagiarism in the task or assessment given to the student or it
can be said like copying up of the content of another person and saying it as owns content is
same as stealing the property of any other person. The work done by a person is his own
property, it is said to be the currency for the person who made the content and if someone steals
it's content the person will lose it property, currency and income which may hurt the individual
but will also may send the copier to jail for stealing of content (Mahabeer, Pirtheepal, 2019).
Legal consequences
Some times, the universities to enhance the learning and the knowledge of the student involves
themselves in the assignment given by the outsiders such as government agencies and businesses
any kind of cheating and dishonesty in these project may lead the university to deal with it
legally not only university but it will harm the student in the real life, if the content written by the
student found false, plagiarized and fabricated data. This may affect the future of the student or
may results in lawsuit actions.
Self esteem of the student
The dishonesty and the cheating in any task will harm the reputation of the student in front of
everyone, the student who is doing it regularly will have no affect but the one who have done it
for the first time, will feel guilt and may result the lack of self-esteem in self, the lack of self-
respect may make the student host some other problem like dishonesty and the lack of
confidence (Eaton, 2021).

Steps taken and the difficulties encountered in producing the game
Steps Taken
While producing the game everyone used their mind and have planned the game and it's
execution for these some necessary steps were being taken, these steps are as follows:-
 Planning — in this the planning was made regarding the game which includes the type of
game and selection of questions and the plan to implement the game, the game is in
relation to plagiarism which will enhance the information in regard with academic
misconduct to reach to ear of every student (Fatemi, Saito, 2020).
 Engagement — after planning the students though of increase in the engagement of the
higher education student in the game so that more and more student can learn about the
topic plagiarism and have full knowledge about what it can do the single student if
catches.
 Implementation and rules — at last the game in relation to plagiarism is launched in front
of many students to make them learn what the plagiarism is it has included over 6
question all the question were written in the spinning wheel and student have to turn the
spinning wheel so that they can get anyone questions which they have to answer if the
student doesn't able to answer the question then that student will get the punishment
(Poitras Pratt,Gladue, 2022).
Difficulties encountered
The main difficulty encountered while producing the game is what the questions will be and how
the more and more students will engage in the game producing event. The planning was done
well and the topic decided is also a trendy topic in the higher education which will enhance the
learning of the student, but the major problem occurred is what will be the questions o the topic
(Plagiarism). So that it will be ease for the students to learn about the topic very easily, the most
the easiest process in this is deciding the first question which is what is plagiarism, but for
deciding more question, we have to visit to our professors so that they can provide us with some
better questions which will be moderate to hard in answering after the successfully completion
and sticking of the questions on the spinning wheel the second most difficulty that comes in front
of us in engagement of more and more students in this event so that they can learn about the
topic plagiarism (Holden, , Kuhlmeier, Norris, 2020).

Skills that the academic year made me learn and helped me in producing my game
There are so many skills the higher education have taught me but what I appreciate in myself the
most is the communication skills, decision-making skill and the leadership skill that I have learnt
from my higher education. It has not only helped me throughout the education period but have
also helped me in producing my plagiarism game, every task have some difficulties that it
encounters and so my game had too but because of the skills that the academic year have made
me learn it was really easy for me to overcome the difficulties I was facing. All of these skills in
brief as follows:-
 Communication skills :- this skill have helped me a lot in meeting new people
communicating to them without hurdles so that I can get the investment, ideas and the
necessary items that is really necessary in producing the game, the communication skills
have also helped me in reaching up to my professors so that they can really help me with
the knowledge full questions that they have (Eaton, Christensen Hughes, 2022).
 Decision-making skills :- when the teacher have told the class to make a game through
which the concept and the real meaning of the plagiarism can be learned, it is really hard
for me to think about anything like a game without even studying about the decision-
making skills in the higher education, this skill that I have developed in my higher
education have helped me to create a game with speedy planning and execution.
 Leadership skills :- the years that I have spent in my higher education have made me
learn the leadership skills that is very necessary in every field whatever I choose to be in,
it has also helped me in producing game when I was aching to have the students my
leadership skill have helped me in engaging more and more students towards playing my
plagiarism wheel game (De Maio, Dixon, 2022).
CONCLUSION
This study report in relation to academic integrity have taught about what the integrity is and it's
necessity and consequences of misconduct or dishonesty, it has also shown the steps and
difficulties that has occurred during producing the game of plagiarism and at last this report has
shown about skills that higher education made the students learn.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
De Maio, C. and Dixon, K., 2022. Promoting academic integrity in institutions of higher
learning: What 30 years of research (1990-2020) in Australasia has taught us. Journal of
College and Character. 23(1). pp.6-20.
Eaton, S.E. and Christensen Hughes, J., 2022. Academic integrity in Canada
Holden, O., Kuhlmeier, V.A. and Norris, M., 2020. Academic integrity in online testing: a
research review.
Poitras Pratt, Y. and Gladue, K., 2022. Re-defining academic integrity: Embracing indigenous
truths. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 103-123). Springer. Cham.
Fatemi, G. and Saito, E., 2020. Unintentional plagiarism and academic integrity: The challenges
and needs of postgraduate international students in Australia. Journal of Further and
Higher Education. 44(10). pp.1305-1319.
Eaton, S.E., 2021. Plagiarism in higher education: Tackling tough topics in academic integrity.
ABC-CLIO.
Mahabeer, P. and Pirtheepal, T., 2019. Assessment, plagiarism and its effect on academic
integrity: Experiences of academics at a university in South Africa. South African
Journal of Science.115(11-12). pp.1-8.
Keefer, L.A., Brown, M. and Rothschild, Z.K., 2020. Framing plagiarism as a disease heightens
students' valuation of academic integrity. International Journal of Psychology. 55(2).
pp.210-214.
Cronan, T.P., Mullins, J.K. and Douglas, D.E., 2018. Further understanding factors that explain
freshman business students’ academic integrity intention and behavior: Plagiarism and
sharing homework.Journal of Business Ethics. 147(1), pp.197-220.
Garwood, K., 2022. Supporting academic integrity in the writing centre: Perspectives of student
consultants. In Academic Integrity in Canada (pp. 431-447). Springer, Cham.
Gottardello, D. and Karabag, S.F., 2020. Ideal and actual roles of university professors in
academic integrity management: a comparative study. Studies in Higher Education,
pp.1-19.