Faculty Education on Academic Integrity: A Micro-Credential Approach
摘要
The need for academic integrity education is clear, and this has been well documented; however, much of the literature focuses on the importance of educating students. Faculty hold a significant role in integrating academic integrity in course delivery, but they may not be attuned to academic integrity expectations and the benefits an academic integrity framework provides from a teaching and learning perspective. Faculty in vocational and polytechnic institutions typically come from industry and may have no previous teaching experience. These subject matter experts can be allies and champions for promoting and maintaining academic integrity by connecting the values of academic integrity to the values of their profession. Educating and empowering vocational and polytechnic faculty ensures a wide reach for integrity values and should be top of mind. One optimal way to build rich academic integrity awareness at an institutional level is to educate faculty via a micro-credential. This chapter explores one Canadian polytechnic’s academic integrity micro-credential framework and examines what precipitated its initiation and what drives its focus. A “sneak peek” into each of the five courses (An Overview of Academic Integrity: Building a Culture of Integrity; The Awkward Conversation: Barriers to Reporting Academic Misconduct & Talking to Students; An Inherent Conflict? Academic Integrity and Technology; Identifying Plagiarism & Maintaining Academic Honesty; and Contract Cheating in Higher Education) and their general themes are explored. Lastly comes a gentle nudge to vocational and polytechnic institutions to consider developing and delivering faculty education on academic integrity, leveraging a model most suitable for them. While this model for faculty education in academic integrity is delivered within a Canadian college/polytechnic context, the benefits, observations, and recommendations are relevant in all contexts since academic integrity education has no borders.