Academic integrity to university students1 is what the constitutional pledge is to elected politicians. We acknowledge it as a pious commitment to our identity in our institutions, but this acknowledgment is often riddled with dilemmas and contradictions. Transgressions are either justified by circumstances or dismissed as trivial, and while we would never like to admit to them in public, we often find ourselves bragging about them in private.
I think we don’t quite understand what academic integrity really means. It probably sounds like one of the many things that adults2 tell us to (or to not!) do — and like most of those things, we expect it to not have any good reason behind it besides that it will make us look good on their moral scale. Unfortunately, university happens to be at a time when we have just become adults ourselves — and it is too early to realize that not only are we going to be accountable for our actions, but that we soon will be a part of the same moral system that we so despise. Of course, we do not have to obey. But to be a player in their game, we must play by their rules. Ironically, most of us do want to play this game — and many of us aspire to win something in it — and so not playing is not a very practical option.
I am not advocating for the systems put in place by grown-ups and their institutions. But I believe that if we agree to the basic building blocks of the ethical system we are brought up to follow — for instance, honesty — we should not have a hard time complying with their compositions, such as academic integrity. However, the problem in not complying with academic integrity is probably not that of agreeing to it — after all, many of us have at some point or another spoken less (or more) than the truth despite believing in honesty! And just like in situations where we are dishonest, when we often invoke the principle of the greater good to justify our actions, we find any actions conflicting with academic integrity to be rationalized by the circumstances.
But I would not want to conclude a flaw in our moral systems. Rather, I think that this is a result of systemic disregard for academic integrity during most of our education, i.e., during school3! For most of us, school focused on the ends rather than the means. Assignments had to be submitted whether or not we could produce them ourselves. Exams had to be passed whether or not we understood the material. Labs had to be completed whether or not we knew what we were doing. And it was expected that we would do whatever it took to get the job done. Of course, cheating during exams was not allowed4 — that would be going too far! But in general, there was hardly any space for creativity and hence little respect for originality.
With my limited experience as an adult, I can already see that there is really no end. I do not plan to deliver a sermon on the importance of academic integrity — specifically because of my limited experience. But while I do believe that academic integrity is of great value in preparing students for fulfilling intellectual positions in the real world, I also feel that our educational institutions need to do more to convince us of this value. Warnings for penalization are good, but I feel that more thought has to be given to making students appreciate academic integrity. Maybe then those warnings wouldn’t have to be so explicit in the first place.
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As always, my opinions are almost entirely based on my experiences at the Indian Institute of Science (the only grass I’ve been able to touch in the last few years is that of the IISc campus). ↩
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I don’t think I want to be an adult yet! ↩
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Of course, our schools are the root of all our evils! /s ↩
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At least not usually. This could be a topic for another time. ↩