To understand academic integrity, let's start by looking at the two words that make up the concept:
So "academic integrity" refers to what it means to be honest and moral when it comes to your education and scholarship.
What does it mean for you to be honest? How do you recognize if someone is moral? How do these ideas connect to your education?
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The International Center for Academic Integrity has identified six fundamental values essential to maintaining academic integrity:
(The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity [PDF])
The first five values set out how students, faculty, staff, and administrators at UofM and other educational institutions should behave towards each other to create a better learning community. Take a moment and think about what it means to act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility.
The last value, courage, is a about having the personal strength to live out the other five values, even if it would be easier not to.
The Fogelman College of Business & Economics makes a clear case in their Standards for Academic Integrity about what is at stake when it comes to acting with academic integrity during your education:
Dr. Matthew Sanders reinforces this point in his book Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education. Your education is an opportunity to grow and develop habits that will benefit you for the rest of your life, but plagiarism, cheating, and other acts of academic dishonesty waste this opportunity. Dr. Sanders notes:
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The University of Memphis takes academic integrity seriously. The section on academic integrity in the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities [PDF] states very clearly that "[p]lagiarism, cheating, and other forms of academic dishonesty are prohibited" (p.22).
The Code also provides how the University of Memphis defines these violations:
You can read pages 22 - 23 of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities for an explanation of the process and punishments for violations of academic integrity at UofM.
“Academic.” Lexico Dictionaries, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/academic.
Fogelman College of Business & Economics. “FCBE Standards for Academic Integrity.” University of Memphis, https://www.memphis.edu/fcbe/students/integrity.php.
“Integrity.” Lexico Dictionaries, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/integrity.
International Center for Academic Integrity. The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity. 2nd ed., 2014, https://www.academicintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Fundamental-Values-2014.pdf.
Sanders, Matthew L. Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education. 1st ed., Institute for Communication & Leadership, 2012.
University of Memphis. Code of Student Rights & Responsibilities. https://www.memphis.edu/osa/pdfs/csrr.pdf.