MEETING TYPE: DISCUSSION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY – BEST PRACTICES MEETING SUMMARY: As we discussed this week’s topic, we have been able to learn how important it is. Academic integrity means being morally and ethically upright when it comes to academics. Education is supposed to encourage fairness, and ethical behavior studying helps people to grow and achieve the goals they deserve (Gallant, 2008). Academic integrity should be practiced at all times. Whereby students in higher learning institutions hold highly on the moral values of academics and do their work honestly without cheating (Drinan and Gallant, 2010). It encourages acts of independent learning and critical thinking (White, Owens, and Nguyen, 2007). Having integrity could be honed as being true to oneself like the simple citation of other’s work in their research, thesis paper, and more. There are core values of academic integrity that include trust, fairness, courage, honesty, responsibility, and respect. However, there are students who fail to achieve it, for instance, they are lying to the lecturer to get a good grade they don't deserve, and they are also lying to themselves. They are misrepresenting their capabilities and knowledge. Cheating is immoral as it shows that one is not prepared to handle the working environment. There are dishonest students who continue to cheat people in their social and private lives even after school because they are not used to hard work (Whitley, 2001). We sought a lack of academic integrity in all its forms, which is indeed widely happening. One way or another, this would lead to plagiarism. It is referred to as literary theft and academic dishonesty, and it’s worst to say, being practiced everywhere. Plagiarism is a very serious offense, and it can attract penalties since the copyright takes the author’s words as his own property and the author. We all agreed that students give several reasons for practicing plagiarism unconsciously, some of which include: time pressure, peer pressure, to increase the mark, monetary reward, fear of failure, everybody does it, laziness, procrastination, lack of research skills, institution admission criteria, poor academic skills, student understanding of plagiarism, external pressure to succeed, careless tutors and invigilators, among others (Devlin and Gray, 2007). This applies to both local and international students as well. There are various ironic insights we have seen for good samples, a student may be working very hard to do an assignment honestly, but realizing that most of their classmates are plagiarizing, he/she may be prone to do it too. In other instances, the local students into adventure and having fun may easily influence international students and since they are new to the environment, they may have fun at the expense of the assignment leading to plagiarizing (Vermaat, 2008, Peer, 2009). Additionally, due to their significant workload, they ought to have a very clear schedule for their activities. The ability of a student to manage his/her time well in college is key to his/her success. Most international students find it hard to adopt the new curriculum and may not be keen on giving enough time to their research papers because of the advanced technology. They know that they can still get the information from the internet or other books thus being reluctant. Whenever a student joins any institution of higher learning, failing is never an option as well and the mission right from day one is to get the best grades possible. The pressure may even be more for international students since it takes some so much sacrifice and strain to seek better education at international institutions. Pressure to succeed and fear of failure is perceived from all directions. For instance, the parents will always be proud of their child if he/she succeeds, the college always sets passing mark giving a student pressure to pass, whoever is learning also gets satisfaction and fulfillment after succeeding, the job market first absorbs the successful students, and in essence, pressure to succeed comes from all direction (Sutherland-Smith, 2008). In spite of our different views, we all conclude academic integrity goes hand in hand with plagiarism since for the former to operate, the latter should be totally avoided. When academic integrity is not upheld, it undermines the core values through which knowledge is obtained thus damaging the reputation of the larger academic community. We have reflected and learned that honesty gives satisfaction and fulfillment in the grades achieved, enabling us to identify and work on our weak areas. For international students, like us, who may be facing challenges adapting to the college’s demands, it is advisable to develop an interest in learning and create more time to understand the concept of practicing/ honing integrity, not only academically but also in daily life in general. We would recommend that writing skills be included in every curriculum as a common unit to give students ample knowledge and best practice on how to learn independently and involve critical thinking whenever they are carrying out their assignments. It should be clear that plagiarism is very serious and should be discouraged in every institution. This is because most students and even instructors/teachers, etc. still have a mentality that plagiarism is just one simple way of accomplishing their course of duty. After identifying some ironic or worse practices mentioned in terms of academic integrity, we hope it will change for the betterment. It is important for all members of this community, to uphold these principles for academic integrity with continued building of knowledge. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Bernerd Whitley, P. S. (2001). Academic Dishonesty: An Educator's Guide. London: Psychology Press, 16-69. • Gallant, T. B. (2008). Academic Integrity in the twenty- first century. London: Jossey-Bass press, 5-138. • Devlin, M. & Gray, K. (2007). A qualitative study of the Reasons Australian university students plagiarize. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne. Web. • Drinan, P. & Gallant, T. (2010), Student Conduct Practice. Virginia: Stylus Publishing. Web. • Peer pressure and plagiarism. (2009). Peer pressure and plagiarism. Web. • Sutherland-Smith, W. (2008). Plagiarism, the Internet, and Students learning. NY, Routledge. Web. • Vermaat, S. (2008). Discovering Computers 2009: Introductory. Cengage Learning. Web. • White, F., Owens, C. & Nguyen, M. (2007). Using a constructive feedback approach to effectively reduce student plagiarism among first-year psychology students. Web.
