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 Introduction  
     
     
 Academic Integrity  
     
 The Perception & The Problem  
     
     
 Academic Dishonesty  
     
    

Affirming Academic Integrity  
    
     
 References  
     
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism in the Classroom: An Overview

Affirming Academic Integrity Previous
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Ultimately, many stakeholders in higher education would like to know how to affirm academic integrity. Clearly, demonstrating that you take the concept seriously by implementing an academic integrity policy or honor codes and enforcing that code or policy is an excellent first step. Ensuring that students, faculty and administrators are familiar with the policy or code is also important. Ultimately, academic integrity cannot be fostered without some commitment of resources by colleges and universities to achieve this end.

Donald McCabe and Gary Pavela have outlined ten principles of academic integrity that colleges and universities could incorporate that would foster academic integrity and thereby decrease incidences of academic dishonesty:

10 Principles of Academic Integrity
  1. Affirm the importance of academic integrity by affirming certain core values such as honesty, truth and fairness.
  2. Foster a love of learning by giving students challenging, useful and fair work.
  3. Treat students as ends in themselves deserving individual attention and consideration.
  4. Promote an environment of trust in the classroom by avoiding arbitrary rules and trivial assignments.
  5. Encourage student responsibility for academic integrity by encouraging reporting abuses.
  6. Clarify expectations for students regarding honesty in academic work.
  7. Develop fair and relevant forms of assessment.
  8. Reduce opportunities to engage in academic dishonesty by setting clear policies and realistic standards for collaboration, improper classroom management or poor examination security.
  9. Challenge occurrences of academic dishonesty by not ignoring academic dishonesty when it takes place.
  10. Assist in defining and supporting campus wide academic integrity standards as opposed to maintaining artificial divisions between departments and schools.

    (from http://www.collegepubs.com/ref/10PrinAcaInteg.shtml)


Providing additional writing and research assistance to students is also important. Writing Centers, Librarians and other instructional as well as non-instructional support units within the university can help to foster academic integrity by assisting students avoid plagiarism and other academic dishonest activities. In attempting to find a solution to unethical academic behavior, there is no silver bullet or one size fits all approach. Indeed, the measures taken at any institution depend on the mission, values and structure of the institution. But undoubtedly, success in affirming academic integrity principles on campus depends on the participation of all the constituents, students, faculty and administrators. Please explore VAIL for more information on the various aspects of effectively implementing and enforcing academic integrity at your institution.

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