Past and Present Engineering Students' Views on Academic Dishonesty at a Middle-Eastern University

Engineering students at an American university in the Middle East were surveyed on various academic dishonesty issues in 2002 and a decade later. 135 students filled out the survey in 2002 and 588 students completed it in 2012. The study considered students’ perception of plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration, cheating on exams, copyright violations, and complicity in academic dishonesty. Since 2002, the university developed a more comprehensive student academic integrity code, established an adjudication process for the code violators, introduced first-year students to the concept of academic integrity during their orientation, asked new students to sign an academic integrity pledge, encouraged faculty to clearly define academic integrity rules in their courses syllabi, and asked faculty to report violators of the code to the administration. Results of the research showed that the taken measures by the institution to improve academic integrity have much greater effect on in-class exams than on out-of-class assignments.