Academic misconduct: considerations for educational administrators.

Abstract

Academic misconduct entails fraudulent behavior involving some form of deception whereby one's work or the work of others is misrepresented. Recently much attention has been paid to the problem of academic misconduct, and concern has been expressed that academic institutions have been slow to act and ineffective in policing themselves. Academic administrators have a responsibility to involve themselves in developing and implementing policies and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct. General principles and an outline of the stages of the investigational process are described, as are sources of information about developing institutional guidelines. Additionally, administrators are encouraged to examine their institutional practices for factors that may contribute to misconduct in an effort to develop norms and practices to help prevent misconduct, which undermines the basic integrity of academic institutions.