Academic Integrity

            Academic integrity is an essential part of learning and research. Without it, originality of ideas would be a dream that only remains a dream. There would be no more contribution to existing knowledge since people would be reproducing what already exists and those who did their best to bring about the existing knowledge would never be acknowledged. In fact, the whole education system would be a fraud since there would be no evidence of learning. Academic integrity violations are many. The most common are cheating and plagiarism (Walden University).

            According to Walden University website, the university subscribes to five fundamental academic integrity values, namely, honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility (Walden University). If every learner were to follow these values, the goals of educational would be achieved. Truthfulness remains an essential tool for learners to achieve the goals of education. Without truthfulness, the system would only produce graduates who just hold papers and pass exams without achieving the intended learning. It should be noted that knowledge for the student exists for pursuing further knowledge. It should guide learners on ways of achieving, even more, knowledge in the field of their studies and contribute to the already existing knowledge. Such errors as cloning, ctrl-c, find-replace, remix, recycle, hybrid, mashup, error 404, aggregator and retweet as identified in the plagiarism spectrum in Turnitin (Iparadigms, 2012) should not form part of a student’s work. If at any time a learner should make use of another person’s work, it is important to acknowledge the author. It is a mistake to present someone else work on one’s own. Whether deliberate or not, plagiarism should be avoided at all costs and any learner should be careful to give credit to those who have contributed to their work.