Integrating Academic Integrity Education with the Business Law Course: Why and How?

Abstract

As a member of the academic integrity committee at Wilfrid Laurier University, I was part of a cross-disciplinary group of faculty and administrators asked to review and revise the existing academic integrity policies and procedures. During the completion of this task, there was often lively debate about fundamental legal topics such as due process, privacy, intention, whistleblowing, misrepresentation, and intellectual property. As the content of these debates began to spill into my business law classroom, I wondered why I was not using this very student-centered issue to teach the procedural and substantive legal content of the course. This article advocates integrating academic integrity education into the business law course. Many have suggested teaching business ethics this way but have ignored the natural overlap in legal content with the traditional business law course. This article focuses on why and how business law instructors should integrate the two. Rather than highlighting only the ethical components of academic integrity, this approach emphasizes the legal aspects of academic misconduct. It connects personal student experiences with many of the substantive legal topics covered in the course,