Discussion Board
Case: Two students are assigned an individual paperwork. They end up writing the paper together and submit nearly identical version.
The integrity issue here is collusion. The assignment was intended to assess individual understanding and skill, but they submitted collaborative work as their own individual effort. This undermines the purpose of the assessment.
The appropriate action would have been to discuss high-level concepts together, but then write the actual paper independently, indicating their self-reflection. If they were unsure about the collaboration policy, they should have clarified the rules with their instructor beforehand.
To prevent this, instructors should explicitly state their collaboration policies in the syllabus, defining the line between acceptable discussion and academic dishonesty. Additionally, creating assignments that require personalized elements can discourage simple copying and promote individual effort.
When a teacher shares a student’s work publicly without seeking consent, the ethical issue involved is a violation of the student’s right to privacy and intellectual property. This action overlooks the student’s ownership of their work and their right to decide how it is shared, potentially causing embarrassment or unintended consequences.
The appropriate action would be for the teacher to acknowledge the mistake, apologize to the student, and, if possible, remove or retract the publicly shared work. Moving forward, consent should always be obtained before sharing student work outside of the classroom, and clear guidelines about the use and sharing of student materials should be established and communicated.
To prevent similar issues, schools and teachers can implement policies about student privacy and intellectual property, provide professional development on ethical practices, and foster a culture where student consent and confidentiality are valued and respected.
Turnitin Plagiarism Index Score
It was in one of my compulsory research methods courses, where we were asked to submit an essay on a comparative analysis of two original articles. I employed AI tools in this task (Notebook LM for idea synthesis, Consensus for bibliography, and Grammarly for grammar checks and structure). To check the index of my writing, I uploaded my work to my HKBU Turnitin account, and I was well below the set limit for the course. However, when I finally posted this same essay on the course module, the index increased dramatically! Amazing!!
I got confused at first, but later found out that the work had been archived on Turnitin's database and was flagged for similar content.
In my opinion, I think it would be appropriate for students to first find out for themselves the plagiarism index of their essays or writing before final submission, without being flagged.
A researcher was asked to review a journal manuscript. Recognising the work as very similar to their own unpublished study, they delayed the review to finish and submit their own paper first, hoping to beat the other author to publication.
This involves a serious breach of peer review ethics and academic integrity. The reviewer abused their privileged access to confidential work for personal gain, violating principles of fairness, confidentiality, and trust that underpin scholarly publishing. Such behaviour undermines the integrity of the research community.
The appropriate response would be for the reviewer to immediately recuse themselves and inform the journal editor of the situation. Institutions and journals should provide clear training on peer review ethics, emphasising confidentiality and the prohibition of using unpublished work for personal advantage. Journals may also implement systems to detect and address such misconduct.
The case of teacher share student's work publicly without asking for permission involed with copyright issues. Based on this case, the teacher should taken off the sharing from public immediately and asking permission from the writer and proetctiing writer's personal information which involed in the work.
In the future, writers should wisely choose their publication platform and clarified the copyright, any sharing of their works should asked for their permission first otherwise will become crime issue.
Case: A student used AI-generated false citations and published a journal article.
The ethical issue involved is academic dishonesty. This undermines scholarly integrity and misleads readers, reviewers, and the academic community.
Appropriate actions would include informing the relevant journal and retracting the article, and providing educational counseling to the student about academic standards and research ethics. Depending on the severity, institutional disciplinary measures may also be warranted.
To prevent similar issues in the future, institutions should provide clear guidelines on AI tool usage and organize workshops on proper citation practices and research ethics. Encouraging a culture of integrity and implementing plagiarism detection tools that also screen for citation validity can further help uphold academic standards.
Choose a case: Reviewers use AI to review the academic paper.
Reflect on these questions:
Using AI to review an academic paper raises research integrity concerns: confidentiality, potential leakage of unpublished ideas, and fairness if AI outputs are inaccurate or biased. The main ethical issue is that a reviewer may be sharing the manuscript’s content with a third party (an AI system or an AI corporate or a shared AI user) without the author’s consent, which can breach journal policies and trust in peer review. An appropriate decision is to avoid uploading any identifiable manuscript text to external tools unless the journal explicitly permits it and the reviewer discloses the use of AI. If AI is allowed, it should be limited to high-level support (e.g., checking clarity of the review) while the reviewer remains fully responsible for judgment. Prevention requires clear journal guidelines, mandatory disclosure, and reviewer training on safe, privacy-preserving use of tools.
I have experienced using AI to help us generate new research ideas. These AI-generated research ideas sound good, but if we think deeply, we will realize they are not applicable.
The integrity issue involved is responsibility. The responsibility states that one should hold oneself accountable for one's own work and actions. If we all rely on AI to help us generate research ideas, we will lose our creativity and everyone's work will be similar.
We should think through research ideas individually and use AI to further refine them. AI should be a helper, not a guider.
We need to read relevant literature ourselves and think deeply and thoroughly about research gaps.
When I was a TA of a course named business analytics in 2021, we had take-home examination due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There were one student who handed in a essay with very high similarity rate in Turnitin. We contacted this student, but he insisted he had not copy any materials from other sources. Later, we found that the high similarity score was due to text similarity between his work and another student's work from another different course session. It turns out that these two students were roommates and one of them (the student from another session) stole the other's work. We were shock at the time of knowing the truth. To prevent such things happen again, our department organized a workshop to help students understand the importance of protecting their knowledge output, especially the materials in their laptop.
Hide repliesCase chosen: A student used AI to rewrite on an essay but didn't acknowledge it.
My reflections:
1. The student violates honesy, trust, and responsibility in the act of plagiarizing AI-generated content.
2. It is appropriate for academic registry task force to intervene and examine the student's academic misconduct. If solid evidence is found, corresponding countermeasures in accordance with institutional regulations should be applied and impose penalty on the student.
3. All involved parties should take in the idea of "Prevention as the main approach, supplied with punishment". That said, the institution should enhance academic integrity education with regularly arranged activities. Apart from that, serious punishment should be given to those who breach the regulations.
The integrity issue involved in this case is honesty and responsibility.