During the late 18th century, academic integrity tightly correlated to the southern honor code. This was monitored mainly by the students and surrounding culture of the time. The southern honor code focused on duty, pride, power, and self-esteem.[2] Any act promoting the up rising or building of any of these within an individual was the goal. Thus, academic integrity was tied solely to the status and appearance of up standing character of the individual. Any acts of academic dishonesty performed to maintain their good name was seen as a necessary means to an end.
It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century when the goals of the university changed that the concept of academic integrity changed. Professors of this era were required to teach and produce original research. The pressure to acquire tenure and publish added extra stress to their jobs. Though acts of academic dishonesty were viewed as acts of follies. Still, the southern honor code concept of academic integrity was evolving into a more contemporary concept. Academic integrity was now beginning to replace honor of the individual honor to the university as an institution.[2] Such an evolution was important to promote unity throughout the academic institution and encourage students to hold each other accountable for dishonest acts. It also allowed the students to feel empowered through the self-monitoring of each other.
As the importance of original research grew among faculty members the questioning of research integrity grew as well. With so much pressure linked to their professional status professor were under intense scrutiny by the surround society. This inevitably led to the separating academic integrity ideals for student and faculty.[2] Because of each groups different goal orientations it no longer made sense to hold them to the same standards. By 1970 most school established honor codes for their student body and faculty members.
In today’s contemporary world there are several factors that reshape the notion of academic integrity. Technology is the most predominant factor. Its influence on the educational system is twofold. It has greatly expanded the traditional views of teaching and learning while challenging them. Technology’s largest contribution to society has been its ability to make large amounts of information available to millions of people simultaneously. Students growing up during and after this phenomenon then have a skewed perception of what ownership of information may entail. Previous generations were forced to seek out direct sources of material in order to obtain that material. Today however, a student can type in any keyword into an online search engine and pull up hundreds of sources with different degrees of relativity and possibly no stated authorship.
Thus, technology has changed the way information is viewed from an entity created by a single individual to more of a communal property. This in turn places pressures on the academic institution to acknowledge this “collective intelligence” and reassess how it is used in contemporary education. Therefore, academic integrity is now less an individual character assessment and more of a social phenomenon.
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