(1933) MITIGATING ACADEMIC DISHONESTY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: ACADEMIC INTEGRITY INTEGRATION METHODOLOGY (AIIM) FOR RESEARCH PAPERS

摘要

Academic Integrity (AI) has become the focus of numerous studies, especially in the Higher Education (HE) context. Multiple stakeholders like governments, academics and administrators are concerned with the increased incidents of breach of Academic Integrity, which have been reported by universities across the globe. Breach of Academic Integrity is considered as a crisis in Higher Education, and therefore, multiple actions have been considered in order to effectively contain this phenomenon. A lot of attention has been directed towards means and ways of “catching” plagiarism, mostly through online text matching tools. However, these tools have limitations and should be used not only for identifying cases of plagiarism but as also as means to guide students on how to properly use and cite sources. Additionally, there is a general concern on the effectiveness of technology serving as a detection mechanism when students turn to automatic translators, online paraphrasing tools and online paid services, which guarantee that their paper will not be “tracked” as plagiarized. The response to the above poor student practices, should be a more holistic approach rather than the typical “policing” one, that academics have been applying up to now. Therefore, there is a need to devise a methodology capable of responding to the challenge of containing breaches of Academic Integrity. The aim of this methodology is to divert the focus of faculty, from solely consuming much of their productive time in spotting instances of breach of Academic Integrity towards aligning Academic Integrity practices with teaching - the overarching objective of academics. The main contribution of our research is the Academic Integrity Integration Methodology (AIIM), a multi-step methodology, which will enable students to develop a thorough understanding on the process and technicalities of developing research papers considering Academic Integrity as top priority, thus eliminating or reducing the possibility of instances of breach of Academic Integrity. In the first part of this paper, we elaborate on the importance of Academic Integrity in Higher Education and we present findings from surveys conducted at international and national levels. In the second part, we discuss findings from the literature in terms of mitigation and deterrence policies, AI frameworks and methodologies. These findings include limitations of technology and shortcomings of existing practices. In the third part, we present the design of a multi-step methodology, which is informed by our interactions with students, our experience from participating in Academic Integrity committees, the use of online tools in our curriculum, findings from the literature and from relevant surveys. This methodology blends students’ perceptions and AI concepts and practices. More specifically, it combines students’ understanding of academic misconduct, students’ self-assessment in terms of content and research paper writing, project management concepts, formative assessments, document revisions, online tools for originality checking, academic sources evaluation and oral examination, in a progressive, stepped manner. Each step is analyzed within the context of higher education for the development of research paper as a summative assessment. Finally, this paper justifies the importance of a holistic in-class approach and the importance of a multi-step methodology, which aims to not simply punish but inform and educate students in the process of delivering academic work according to Academic Integrity values.