Academic integrity is complying with a school’s academic code by committing to summit truthful, honest academic work. One should always follow the rules even if they think they will not get caught. Some examples of honest work consist of doing your own words, not letting people copy your work, and always referencing the work of others. Students should strive to have authenticity in their work by expressing their own ideas. Working independently will better guarantee that your work is authentic. When writing a paper it is important to acknowledge the original author because it shows the professor that you understand the material and you can analyze the topic in a clear manner without plagiarism.
The concept of academic integrity is significant to the University for multiple reasons. One main reason is that dishonest behavior often undermines the credibility of the university. The university, professors and other students are supposed to trust the students that attend the college. People will be more willing to work with you if they know you have integrity. Dishonest behavior often will diminish the public’s view of higher academia. Universities expect each student to want to succeed in their professional lives by learning the knowledge of their chosen career with honest work. When you cheat and lie your way through college that often discredits your education and knowledge of your chosen field. If students start to graduate from a college with dishonest behavior that college will soon lose the confidence of their community and the degrees given out will no longer be respected.
Academic dishonesty is easy to come by for many college students for several reasons. Five factors of academic dishonesty are peer pressure, performance anxiety, the inability to manage the demands of student life, not knowing the boundaries of assignments, and ineffective time management. According to Northern Illinois University, students may feel peer pressure, performance anxiety, and the inability to manage the demands of student life. Students may feel peer pressure to work with a friend or split an assignment such as a study guide for an exam when course policy may prohibit partnership. Students may have anxiety over their poor test-taking skills so they may cheat to avoid receiving a bad grade. Many times students can not manage their academic and social lives. Many students do not know how to manage their workload which can result in not meeting deadlines and resort to cheating.
According to Berkeley University of California, students may not know the boundaries of an assignment. I can vouch for this statement because I split an assignment with another student that resulted in both of us handing nearly the same piece of work on an assignment and receiving academic dishonesty for it. Instructors need to be clear about their expectations about student collaboration and individual responsibilities. Students may submit the same paper for different courses and not think anything about it because the student is the original author.
However, this is a form of self-plagiarism. Students like to wait until the last minute to do assignments or prep for a test but there might be other factors that play into it such as responsibilities in family, jobs, extracurricular activities. With the overloading work, students need to learn how to time manage life and academic work. These circumstances may lead students to intentionally or unintentionally resort to dishonest practices in an attempt to boost their grades.