Providing Academic Integrity 3 Providing Academic Integrity at the Collegiate Level

What can be done to curb the college cheating and plagiarism epidemic? Colleges need to provide and ensure students have an accurate and thorough understanding of academic integrity. If colleges provide academic training in the form of a learning module combined with a placement test, prior to entry it would ensure that students begin college with a full understanding of academic integrity and personal accountability. An on-line tutorial would offer many advantages. First, it would relay an expectation of academic integrity. Second, it would increase honest behavior among students. Most importantly, it would reinforce an academic climate that does not tolerate dishonesty. The climate would change from one where students accept cheating as a norm, to one where they expect honesty. Colleges must be proactive and insist on academic integrity prerequisites. Colleges need to support a climate of academic integrity