2nd Asia-Pacific Educational Integrity Conference
Abstract
An Evaluation of the Perceived Value of Web-Based Academic Integrity Resources for Staff
Robert Muller - Flinders University
This paper presents an evaluation of the value of providing a web-based resource to support academic staff in teaching, encouraging and modelling academic integrity. The primary goal of the project was to adopt an educational approach to support academics and students in developing and maintaining academic honesty and to minimise the incidence of academic dishonesty within the university community. The project module reported in this paper focused on academic staff education. A website was designed containing information on academic integrity and ways to educate students about it. It also provided guidance on putting policy into practice, methods of detection and ways of designing assessment to minimise opportunities for academic dishonesty. An exploration of cross-cultural issues in relation to academic integrity was included, as this is often a pejorative, uninformed subtext of many discussions regarding academic honesty. Finally, it is often assumed that academic staff have a reasonable level of understanding of academic integrity. This project determined that it was important to not leave this to chance and to include information that would promulgate a common set of principles regarding academic integrity in teaching. This evaluation aims to establish whether the staff website of the AIMS project has helped academics to increase their understanding of all aspects of academic integrity, including education of students, policy and procedures, detection, course design, cross-cultural issues, and the modelling of academic integrity in teaching and learning. The evaluation will be undertaken through qualitative interviews with Flinders University academic teaching staff.Keywords: academic integrity, evaluation, educating, course design, cross-cultural, plagiarism
