Abstract
Academic integrity determines the trust that society has in the quality of education and the results of scientific research. More broadly, it influences honesty, respect for ethical principles, and the fair behaviour of society members. Accordingly, higher education institutions should have clear, transparent and well-communicated policies to defend academic integrity among all stakeholders. Taking into account the worldwide dependence on digital technologies, online communication channels should be also used for this purpose. Using qualitative content analysis, this paper aims to investigate how academic integrity is framed by Latvian and Lithuanian state-financed universities in online public spaces in relation to the criteria of an exemplary academic integrity policy. Given the limited content of publicly available university documents, the research findings indicated a poor correspondence to the mentioned criteria.
Highlights
The reiteration of the discussion on ethical issues in academia implies that academic integrity is impervious to time, so it does not lose its relevance
Given the scale of issues interconnected to articulating academic integrity publicly and institutionally, this paper aims to examine how academic integrity is framed by Latvian and Lithuanian state-financed universities in online public spaces
To acquire evidence on academic integrity policy, we looked for two types of publicly available documents: a) academic integrity policies and other related regulations available on the websites of the selected public universities; and b) press articles related to academic integrity or other ethical issues in the selected public universities on the most popular Latvian and Lithuanian news portals
Summary
The reiteration of the discussion on ethical issues in academia implies that academic integrity is impervious to time, so it does not lose its relevance. The need to identify ethical issues in academia requires being in regular search of efficient solutions of how to prevent malpractices and intervene when they appear The search for such solutions is normal practice; a systematic approach of shaping, implementing, auditing, revisiting, and further developing institutional values and related norms comprises the essential stages of ethics management (Kaptein 1998; Pučėtaitė and Lämsa 2008; Vasiljevienė 2006; Wieland 2003). In spite of these developmental stages, ethics management does not always take the same transition pathway in all regions, in estimating the level to which ethics infrastructure (or ethics management tools) is developed. Ethics infrastructure covers various means, such as ethics training, ethics committees, codes of ethics, helplines, and ombudsman or compliance services, ethics audit and so forth (Driscoll and Hoffman 1999; Francis and Armstrong 2003; Tauginienė 2016; Vasiljevienė 2006; Vasiljevienė and Jakimenko 2012)
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