by Norman Munro

Created on: September 09, 2009

Academic Honesty and Its Importance.

The concept of Academic Honesty has a long and noble history. Before the days of the printing press, the wide dissemination of information and greatly increased levels of literacy, scholarly knowledge was mainly the preserve of small elite. The urban universities and the church - initially the Roman Catholic Church - were the strongholds of learning, although there were a few noted scholars and academics who worked under a system of patronage.

This was a world in which most of the elite knew each other, and to a certain extent because of their backgrounds, trusted each other.

Written communication was of necessity by manuscript, and no regular system of citation of existing work was needed. This situation probably contributed to a certain amount of unintended plagiarism. The concept of intellectual property or copyright. Ideas were generally held to be universal property, to which no individual had a right of ownership or use.

Academic honesty is rather difficult to define precisely, but it can be considered to be an ideal whereby all forms of cheating or artificial gain of advantage is avoided in the production of academic writing. It is much easier to describe academic dishonesty in terms of cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, deception and academic misconduct.

Academic dishonesty has not always been regarded as unethical or immoral. Throughout the 19th century, cheating and plagiarism were a well accepted commonplace in American colleges.

It is still common today, with some authorities suggesting that up to 70% of US High School students have indulged in some form of cheating. (1)

If we are concerned about academic honesty, we must clearly understand why it matters. Donaldson and Ruben (2) suggest that there are seven main issues with which we must concern ourselves.

Cheating leads to inequality, in that it is probable that those who cheat and plagiarize gain an unfair advantage in test gradings over those who do not, thus negating honest effort.

Most educational establishments see their role as not only passing on knowledge, but also as inculcating honest and ethical standards and behaviour. Allowing cheating to flourish at best undermines this aim, and at worst, destroys it completely.

Part of the process of education is learning how to seek out and use information. Those who cheat and plagiarize their way through school simply never learn these essential skills, and develop a moral view which accepts that this is

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