Academic Dishonesty in the Information and Technology Era: Student Cyber Ethics Study

The advent of information technology (IT) and its rapid evolution have changed the way students engage in unethical behaviour or academic dishonesty at universities. Some students have changed the good usage of IT gadgets into negative usage. The human method of committing academic dishonesty has changed rapidly. Students are able to use websites such as Google to download information related to their academic work without referencing their sources. The students then submit their ill-gotten academic work as their own. They also use IT gadgets to copy during formal assessments, whether at home or at the assessment venue. Some students may use IT gadgets to send each other assessment notes while in the examination venue or at a different assessment. This necessarily means that universities must devise new methods of managing cyber ethics misconduct committed by their students. Their codes of conduct should be refined to include academic dishonesty and how to deal with students who have engaged in such unethical behaviour. These unethical behaviours compromise the quality of academic qualifications and the reputation of the specific university where such acts are committed.