Academic Integrity in a Digital Age

The choice of the word ‘integrity’ has been due to its broader and holistic nature. The concept of integrity is broader than simply honesty, as integrity implies all the principles, values, and behaviours that contribute to good character, including for example, honesty, fairness, respect, trust, perseverance, responsibility and courage (Fishman, 2014; Edussuriya, Marambe, Wanniarachchi & Ramanayake, 2014). Integrity is a term used to describe a good person in different aspects including in the classroom, in research, in the community and in their profession.  Academic integrity creates opportunities to share knowledge, create new knowledge, interact with other professionals with ease and enables learners to extend to commit to excellence and to become scholars (Fishman, 2014). According to Fishman (2014) trust which is one of the values in academic integrity ‘enables us to collaborate, to share information, and to circulate new ideas freely, without fear that our work will be stolen, our careers stunted, or our reputations diminished’.

 In our daily academic life there are numerous challenges associated with academic integrity.  Students and researchers alike may at times find themselves ‘cheating’. It is common practice to find students looking for someone to do assignments for them, cheat in examinations, or copy and paste research works of others without acknowledgement. In essence, the effect of cheating is far reaching to the extent that society finds itself surrounded by irresponsible citizens, some of whom sail through cheating and are later found holding very senior and delicate positions. Cheating is just one form of violation of academic integrity. According to Strittmatter & Bratton (2014) , dishonesty, if accepted, can be later be practised at different times and situations.  As such, dishonest behaviours that started in high (secondary) schools can sustain in colleges; and likewise, students who are engaged in academic dishonest behaviours in college tend to engage in dishonest acts in the workplace as well. What Strittmatter & Bratton (2014) says implies that higher education inherits dishonest cases that have grown through different stages and thus need to be more serious in identifying and ending such malpractices so that the community is not affected. The question then is, do Universities have strategies to do so? If not, what are the ways to build and sustain an integrity community? This course therefore is intended to fill that lacuna.

In this case, violation of academic integrity principles is a social problem.  We may have encountered news reports in both print and electronic media relating to fraud cases in both private and public higher education institutions. This is not unique to the education sector: other notable sectors include health, justice, home affairs, infrastructure, land and many more, all of which clearly reflect the extent of the problem of integrity. Integrity thus needs to be developed in Universities so that their graduates are capable of becoming persons of integrity, moral and ethical nature, when they enter the workforce. Academic integrity, therefore, can be defined as a commitment to fulfilling the five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Institutions providing education services are therefore required to promote academic integrity, and failure to do so results in increased ethical challenges.

The term integrity refers to adherence to certain moral standards and ethical principles, soundness of moral character and honesty. The underlying words in the term integrity are honest, ethical, moral and principles. Hence honest, soundness of moral behaviour and ethical principles are intertwined.  Academic integrity identifies how you conduct yourself as well as show the type of person you are. It also refers to your acknowledgment of and respect for the academic principles and behaviours as a learner or facilitator in the learning process. Both learner and the learning facilitator have a responsibility to ensure academic integrity in the pursuit of goodness of the current and future society. Imagine one who developed academically through cheating, what will happen if becomes a medical doctor, an accountant, and or police? Things will be worse as will have no ability to demonstrate the required expertise in the job performance as expected.

In interpreting academic integrity, one can see it mainly in two ways: first as an academic practice or what it means to be an academic. This is considered in three functions: teaching, research and services (consultancies) in which academicians display their integrity (or lack of it can be judged). Second, the word integrity can be treated as incorporating the excellences of character one might expect from a good person or a good academic. As such, academic integrity can also be said to be the values, behaviour and conduct of academics in all aspects of their practices (teaching, research and consultancies) within and outside the academic spheres.

For the learning facilitators, the lecturers and teachers, academic integrity is about awarding students what they deserve, testing students what they have learned and providing necessary support to the learners. In the case of students, academic honesty is demonstrated when the ideas and the writing of others are properly cited; students submit their own work for tests and assignments without unauthorized assistance; students do not provide unauthorized assistance to others; and treat all other students in an ethical manner. The strategies to enhance academic integrity are taken on board in many universities, for example, in 2015 Rutgers University had set rules to ensure academic integrity, including that of  all students had to respect their integrity and right to pursue their educational goals without interference. This attempt needed students to work independently and ensure ethical manner. Each student had to ensure that  “obtains all data or results by ethical means and reports them accurately without suppressing any results inconsistent with his or her interpretation or conclusions and report their research or accomplishments accurately”. The same type of code of conduct in academics is found in every University. At the Open University of Tanzania, a student to complete a Master and PhD degree have a set criteria. For masters, one will work with the supervisor, submit the report in hard and soft copy, test for plagiarism check using Turnitin before submitting to the external examiner and later call for Oral Defense. These processes are created to ensure that what student present is what one did and is the one who did it.

 Academic integrity is about adherence to the academic principles in order to ensure that:  everyone is given proper credit for his or her ideas, words, results, and other scholarly accomplishments; all student work is fairly evaluated and no student has an inappropriate advantage over others; the academic and ethical development of all students is fostered and the reputation of the institution for integrity in its teaching, research, and scholarship is maintained and enhanced. Failure to uphold these principles of academic integrity threatens both the reputation of the University and the value of the degrees awarded to its students. Every member of the University community, therefore, bears a responsibility for ensuring that the highest standards of academic integrity are upheld so that they can be integrated into other members of the society through the process of teaching, research and consultancies. On the whole academic integrity needs to be observed at all levels of Education and in general daily life (Roberts & Hai-Jew, 2009; Langa, 2013).