When I use a word . . . Academic integrity—principles and definitions

Abstract

In this article I summarise the main results of 10 previous articles in which I have discussed the nature of academic practice, highlighting academic norms and violations thereof, offering definitions of important terms. The following are the relevant definitions: ● academic: A person interested in or excelling at pursuits involving reading, thinking, study, teaching, and research. ● academic integrity: Uncorrupted moral virtue in relation to truth, uprightness, honesty, and sincerity in the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship. ● academic norm: A standard or pattern of behaviour that is accepted or expected in all academic activities, including research, education, and scholarship. ● academic violation: An infringement, breach, or contravention of an academic norm. ● academic felony: Fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results, or in other academic activities. ● academic fabrication: Making up research data or results or other forms of academic outputs and recording or reporting them. ● academic falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting research data or results, or other forms of academic outputs, such as to misrepresent the original outputs. ● academic plagiarism: Appropriation and use by an academic of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words, without giving appropriate credit. ● academic misdemeanour: Any minor violation or infringement of an academic norm or norms, short of the major violations of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. I also include lists that extensionally define academic integrity, academic norms, academic plagiarism, and academic misdemeanours. In 10 consecutive weekly columns in this space I have been exploring selected aspects of academic integrity. In order to avoid excessive self-citation, I give here the topics dealt with, in the order in which they appeared, and the associated doi codes: (a) academicism: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2128 (b) curiosity: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2188 (c) skepticism: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2250 (d) integrity: …