Generic learning materials: developing academic integrity in your students

Academic integrity (AI) is of relevance across all academic disciplines, both from the perspective of the educator and the student. From the former perspective there is the need to increase the awareness of AI amongst the student population whilst monitoring and enforcing the rules and regulation regarding plagiarism within their institution. On the other hand, students need a full appreciation of the importance of AI and a clear recognition of the penalties for flouting the regulations in order to steer a successful passage through higher education and on into their professional career. By repurposing learning materials originally developed by the Pennsylvania State University (USA), the Universities of Southampton and Leeds (UK) have developed academic integrity guidelines to support students in their studies and provide an assessment of their understanding of AI concepts. This chapter describes the development of these learning activities and examines the technical and content issues of repurposing materials for three different institutions. It also reflects on the success of embedding the guidelines and assessment in geography programmes at two UK universities, examines the effect of using the online plagiarism detection service, Turnitin, to police plagiarism cases and summaries the lessons learnt in helping geography students to enhance their study skills.