Academic integrity is fundamental throughout your time at University. Understanding its importance is key to ensuring that we create a respectful and knowledgeable environment where all students receive fair opportunities. Keep reading for the top reasons Your Advice Service believes academic integrity is important.
It affects your education:
You are putting time, effort and money into achieving a degree which prepares you for your future career. Assessments are designed to test and progress your knowledge and skills. If you don’t use your own abilities to complete them you’re not giving yourself a fair chance to succeed and you won’t receive honest feedback which can help you develop. And, if you don’t learn the basics of your degree properly, you are likely to struggle later on as your studies will build on what you’ve already learnt.
It affects your friendships:
Cheating on purpose isn’t fair to your classmates. If you copy work from another student, they may be invited to an academic misconduct meeting, even if they didn’t know that their work has been copied. This can affect both of your degrees.
It affects the value of your degree:
Being awarded a qualification you haven’t earnt fairly lowers the value of your own degree and affects the reputation of the University overall.
It affects your marks:
If you don’t write well or reference properly, you won’t get good marks. Serious or repeated cases of academic misconduct can even lead to you being expelled from the University Group.
It affects your future career:
Some professions (for example teaching) will ask for details about academic misconduct in references. Find out more about the reference policy here.
It affects your character:
Not referencing or citing is lazy and disrespects others who have put in hard work to research, write and share or publish a piece of work. Would you trust someone who wasn’t honest or responsible, who doesn’t say what they mean or do what they say, and who took credit for ideas that weren’t theirs?
Support:
If you are struggling with your studies and considering any kind of academic misconduct, we would recommend visiting the University Academic Integrity webpage with videos and resources to help you avoid this. Support is also available from the Centre for Academic Writing with any issues you are facing.
If you suspect that someone is not following the University’s rules of academic integrity, you can report this to the University by emailing IntegrityThreats@coventry.ac.uk.