Academic integrity in higher education: manifestations and motivation factors

Abstract

The article highlights the problems of ensuring academic integrity in higher education and the factors that determine them. The category "integrity" is considered not only in ethical and legal aspects, but also in an economic dimension. The peculiarities of such forms of dishonesty as plagiarism, methodological manipulation, abuse of self-citation and bias in further professional activities (using the profession of auditor as an example) are considered. It is substantiated that achieving the profitability of investments in national education to the level of foreign indicators requires the improvement of educational management and the introduction of a number of documents of an organizational and legal nature regarding incentives for conscientiousness. A comparative analysis of national and foreign experience in overcoming negative manifestations in university education is carried out. It is emphasized that the imperfection of the criteria system for determining the scientific rating affects to a large extent the violation of the integrity of universities’ academic staff. The productive role of the cooperation between the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance and foreign institutions in the implementation of European experience in ensuring academic integrity, adapted to Ukrainian socio-economic realities, is emphasized. The expediency of involving international organizations in monitoring the state of corruption within the Ukrainian education is substantiated. It is proposed to supplement the evaluation of the state of academic integrity of the HEIs in the process of educational and scientific work with the applicants by evaluating it by means of the criteria of conscientiousness and productivity of graduates’ professional activity. It is proved that the training of applicants must necessarily include the projection of ethical principles and principles of academic integrity in the future profession, taking into account special requirements of international standards and professional codes of ethics. It is emphasized that elevating integrity to the level of immanent value of educational and scientific society is a guarantee for competitiveness of graduates of Ukrainian universities on the European market of knowledge.