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The new Globethics.net University Ranking (GUR) will provide a unique global ranking instrument that places values, ethics, and sustainability as central principles of higher education institutions worldwide. It encompasses a new higher education framework to assess student learning experience, and key stakeholders on integrity, values-driven leadership, and sustainability commitment. Universidad de Santiago, a private institution in Cape Verde, received the highest overall score and gained the best marks for student sustainability and integrity.

In the three months before March 15, the company ProctorU, which monitors tests remotely, confirmed cheating in 2,547 cases. In the three months after, when the pandemic triggered campuses across the US to move online, ProctorU verified 57,597 cheating incidents. Ethicists say that students Googling answers on tests have an unfair advantage over students who do not. This same behaviour by medical students or apprentice pilots has consequences that are even more serious, as it places others in jeopardy.

The Josephson Institute, which conducts a survey of high school students every two years, reports that while 50% of students admit cheating, 93% are "satisfied with their own ethics and character". A professor at Rutgers University also suggests that half of their students cheat at least once a year. To demonstrate a united global front against cheating, Member institutions from the International Centre for Academic Integrity participate in the 5th annual Day of Action Against Contractual Cheating.

The 2017 Kessler International survey highlighted that “79% of students admitted to plagiarizing their assignments from the internet, 42% purchased custom papers online, and 28% said they had a service take their online classes for them.” An expert on integrity and ethics in education argues that minimizing cheating during remote education requires effective communication and instruction, and that classwork and assessments should focus on mastery rather than performance.

Boston University is investigating cheating after chemistry and physics students used the Chegg tutoring service to ask questions and get answers to online quizzes and exams. The university expects students to continue to behave ethically through remote learning in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A doctoral student in higher education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, conducted a sociological research about corruption in higher education. Based on his examination of the 2009 Illinois admissions scandal, which centered on the university’s use of a separate, hidden admissions process to ease the entry of applicants with ties to politicians, donors, and university officials, his paper concludes that administrative misconduct frequently is "an organizational problem that demands organizational solutions."

The professoriate is a gatekeeper, determining a student's first exposure to ethical standards, traditions. Many observers of contemporary academic culture have documented cases if irresponsible and unethical behavior within the professoriate. Examples include lateness for class, use of vulgarity in scholarly forums, showing favouritism among students, improper use of campus funds, plagiarism, sexual liaisons with students, failure to properly perform administrative duties, and, most basic, unwillingness to uphold the value of truth in teaching and research.