Academic Integrity: Information Systems Education Perspective

Abstract

Academic integrity receives a great deal of attention in institutions of higher education. Universities and colleges provide specific honor codes or have administrative units to promote good behaviors and resolve dishonesty allegations. Students, faculty, and staff have stakes in maintaining high levels of academic integrity to ensure their degrees’ value and preserve respect for their institutions. Often, these efforts result in disparate local dialogs and various approaches to create and maintain cultures of integrity. Despite this, academic integrity receives relatively little attention in the academic literature. Several underlying reasons may exist. First, people generally do not want to reveal dishonest actions and this makes research difficult. Second, students come from a variety of backgrounds and cultural settings with different perspectives on academic integrity; some from high school environments with differing views on academic integrity. This context has resulted in the growth of information services and software products designed to structure and enable academic integrity activities and compliance. However, taken by themselves, these services provide only a partial solution. The current special issue is set against this dynamic backdrop and seeks to bring necessary discussions into the open, particularly for those teaching and researching in areas related to information systems. Our special issue offers a venue where research and practice come together in the voices of our contributors. Specifically, our articles include perspectives of academic integrity in online courses; using reflective methods to reduce plagiarism; giving voice to values as a means of promoting ethical actions; and general perspectives on a large-scale academic integrity program.