11/01/2024

Reflections on IDoA 2024

It was my huge pleasure to host the 15 hours of the International Day of Action for Academic Integrity on October 16. In terms of ‘International’: we had 526 attendees across the day joining from 48 countries including Zambia, St Kitts and Nevis, Colombia, Singapore, Nepal, Romania, Lithuania, Hungary and New Zealand. Regarding ‘Day of Action’, the day involved 85 panelists located in 15 countries in 18 sessions, in very active discussion or dialogue with a strong focus on exchange of practice, engaging the audience through questions and activities throughout. On our theme of ‘All hands on deck: Making academic integrity everyone’s job’, there was naturally a strong focus on responsibility as one of the ICAI Fundamental Values (2021). Many sessions also featured collaboration – the need to work together, connect and learn from others. From my perspective, another strong element of the day was goodwill: everyone positively contributing to an uplifting, global community event.

Student panel discussions
First and foremost, as with every International Day of Action, we want to foreground the student voice and ensure we listen to students’ views. The student panel discussions and student team sessions were central to the event. The first student panel was an ‘across the ditch’ exchange between students at University of Auckland, New Zealand with those at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia, coordinated by Miriam Sullivan, Sheryll McKintosh and Ben Kao (see image above). The students talked about academic integrity challenges in terms of peer and social pressure, and the need to focus on their own behaviour, that getting a low score is better than cheating and the need for individual responsibility. The second student panel was in Spanish coordinated by Lucy Puente Cruz from the Tec de Monterrey about student pledges to live with integrity. Students from the Latin American network, from Mexico, Guatemala and Chile, took part in a lively discussion about how they made decisions regarding academic integrity in their study. The final student panel coordinated by Rachel Gorjup and Jennie Miron involved students from Canada and Nigeria who had been part of the Student Working Group for IDoA. They recounted some powerful personal examples of learning from their own mistakes, demonstrating that academic integrity means caring about learning not just grades, and the importance of having supportive tutors to guide them with their understanding.

Student voices within sessions

IDoA2024 student network image

Three other sessions featured students as part of a team with teaching staff and others. I presented with students from our international Student Academic Integrity Network involving Oxford Brookes University, UK, the American University of Nigeria and the University of Adelaide, Australia (see above image), along with my wonderful collaborators, Claudia Gottwald and Emilienne Akpan. Together with students from each institution, we presented our beginner’s guide to academic integrity to help those in disadvantaged situations. Part of the session was a student-led discussion of how they worked with academic integrity, with insights including that students don’t want tutors to know what they don’t know, students need to gain confidence to recognize they have a voice, can be critical and can contribute more to academic integrity within their institutions than they may realise.
A session from Turkey led by Salim Razi about the snowball effects of individual efforts on mega level academic integrity included inspiring accounts of individual journeys, the impacts on study and career paths, the importance of learning from others, that every effort counts and the ripple effect of one person’s actions. Three students at 3 different levels (PhD, Master’s and undergraduate) contributed to the discussion and talked about how particular tutors had influenced them and the importance of academic integrity modules as part of their study.
One innovation this time was a session from UAE hosted by Zeenath Reza Khan which turned the spotlight on school age (K-12) academic integrity by debating with grade 8 and grade 12 students, parents, schoolteachers and a school principal. They discussed the importance of role models, academic integrity as a way of life, the importance of courage to tell the truth, how every area of education, including in the home, is linked and everyone needs to speak the same language. All of the contributors, even the youngest, presented very powerful assertions about academic integrity and the session was very interesting in illuminating effective approaches to academic integrity prior to university.

Faculty insights
The first and last sessions of the day focused on faculty in Australia and New Zealand. The first session involved a range of faculty from Torrens University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland University of Technology, University of Newcastle and Edith Cowan University debating the factors that enable them to engage in academic integrity and the factors that could create barriers. One reflection was the impact of employment status on engagement in academic integrity, so for example precarious employment could impact the time and motivation to report breaches or educate students about on academic integrity. The final session of the day returned to Australasia and involved insightful sessions from the Australasian Forum event in September about setting up a new system for academic integrity as a blank slate using frameworks and collaboration given by Amanda Janssen from University of South Australia, building communities for academic integrity by listening to student voices by Neil Ulrich and Elizabeth Gray from Massey University, New Zealand, and employing virtue ethics for personal responsibility by Patricia Grant from Kaplan Business School, Australia.

Distinct groups
As the IDoA Committee, we tried to ensure a wide range of voices were included in IDoA2024, so a further innovation was to include groups who may not generally be part of IDoA or academic integrity events. We had an important quality assurance panel hosted by QAA CEO Vicki Stott involving quality assurance bodies in the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and Ghana. Helen Gniel from TEQSA shared a handy Venn diagram of responsibility, and the panel’s discussions included HE standards, horizon scanning and transitions, demonstrating the impressive work of quality assurance bodies who collaborate internationally and with providers to share good practice through extensive resources and events.

IDoA2024 HE panel image
I chaired a panel discussion of HE leaders from Ireland, Canada, Mexico and Australia, who debated their roles and approaches to leadership in terms of academic integrity in fascinating ways (see image above). They discussed courageous conversations, equity and fairness and a range of leadership approaches: third space leadership, distributed leadership, compassionate leadership and leadership seen as learning from others. They also debated the power of collaboration, and the desire to retain students in academic conduct situations, the focus on building belonging to make changes and the power of networks.
A very welcome and interesting panel discussion hosted by Jennie Miron involved librarians from Ireland, Canada, USA, Nigeria and Chile. They demonstrated their highly developed expertise in nurturing information literacy among students and their methods of collaboration, drawing attention to the very important role that librarians play in academic integrity and providing a call for action for colleagues to join up more with them.

Academic integrity achievements
A further section of the day linked to achievements in academic integrity and reasons to celebrate them. I chaired an incredibly stellar group of academic integrity innovators (Tricia Bertram Gallant, Amanda McKenzie, Greer Murphy, Victoria Malaney and Kelly Ahuna) who had all inaugurated academic integrity offices, even where they were working as an office of one, but extended their reach and impact to build relationships and momentum across their institutions. The speakers provided key advice to 'find your people' and focus on teaching and learning.
Luz Godina and Lucy Puente discussed how their respective institutions UDEM (Universidad de Monterrey) and Tec de Monterrey in Mexico had gained the ICAI integrity campus award through huge impacts in evolving systems of integrity, engaging students through training and events, and developing an extremely successful Latin American network and conference. They shared inspiring examples of how to achieve an institution-wide engagement in academic integrity; very useful to anyone thinking of applying for the award!
Veronika Krásničan and Tomáš Foltýnek as Executive Director and President of ENAI (European Network for Academic Integrity) respectively presented some very thought-provoking scenarios to raise awareness of the shared responsibility for academic integrity and the need to demonstrate integrity in all areas of life. They gave insights into the reach and organization of ENAI including the working groups and launched the new Working Group that I have the joy of leading, called Integrity For All.
The next main event in the ICAI calendar, the Conference 2025 was given a great promotion by the chairs, Camilla Roberts and Blaire Wilson, making a strong case for the theme of 'Integrity is Fair'!

So that’s a wrap with IDoA2024! We'll soon be announcing the winners of the student social media post contest. Check out the recordings which will be linked to the website. Thank you so much to the hardworking IDoA Committee especially my co-chair Rachel Gorjup, the working groups and everyone who contributed as panelists and attendees. I hope that you, like me, came away with new ideas, enthusiasm and the sense that individuals can make a difference to academic integrity. We are already gathering ideas for IDoA2025!

The author’s views are their own.
Thank you for being a member of ICAI. Not a member of ICAI yet? Check out the benefits of membership at https://academicintegrity.org/about/member-benefits and consider joining us by contacting info@academicintegrity.org. Be part of something great!