Two contextual elements underpinned the rationale of the project:

1. the fact that academic integrity can all too often be conflated with academic misconduct, thus overshadowing the positive and empowering ethical values and behaviour it encapsulates for learning and wider life practices. These values, as defined by the International Center for Academic Integrity, comprise honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility and courage, values to be cultivated in association with an ethos of compassion and concern;
2. the need to create partnership between staff and students in relation to academic integrity as a shared responsibility: students should not just be recipients of instruction and guidance in the area, they should also be active proponents of those values and practices academic integrity represents. A primary spur for the project was the belief that the student view and experience of academic integrity had not yet been sufficiently solicited and taken into consideration.

To address these elements, the project sought to enable students to engage with their peers to champion the core values of academic integrity as an integral part of learning. This awareness-raising exercise was also part of a reframing of student (and staff) understanding of what academic integrity entails, beyond the avoidance of plagiarism.

• To capture the student view and experience of academic integrity in the College of Arts and Humanities
• To develop, in dialogue with students, the role of student champions for academic integrity, enabling students to engage with their peers to promote a healthy learning culture
• To appoint, instruct and support students in the role of champions for academic integrity
• To facilitate the development of outputs by students for students in support of academic integrity

The project aimed to effect cultural change, in terms of students’ perception of their own learning practices and shared responsibility for upholding the highest ethical standards in UCD. Predicated on dialogue between staff and students, the project worked to complement institutional policy and protocols with a peer-to-peer-based awareness raising and guidance campaign. Feedback from student champions, as well as from the wider student body and staff, has resulted in recommendations for future consideration.

Prior to the recruitment campaign for student champions in the College (15-23 November 2023), a student focus group was held in May 2023 and again, with prospective champions, in November 2023, both of these events resulting in dedicated transcripts and analysis of student views. To gauge views of the wider student body, a student survey on academic integrity was administered in the College on 27 September-6 October 2023 (240 respondents) and this survey was complemented by a staff survey (44 respondents) on 12-19 February 2024, with results of both duly analysed and compared. Following some 20 expressions of interest in the champion role and three meetings with those students, a group of 7 champions cohered. An academic integrity awareness week took place on 4-8 March 2024, during which champions set up a stand in the College featuring outputs they had produced — posters, quizzes, questions inviting responses on a comment board — with a view not only to guiding other students but to actively eliciting their views on academic integrity. A one-hour online student-staff discussion forum was also held during this week, bringing together champions and teaching staff to present their perspectives on academic integrity and identify through dialogue points of convergence as well as of difference. A similar week was organised on 14-17 October 2024, to coincide with National Academic Integrity Week, and was promoted by NAIN. Located outside the library, with which it was organised in partnership, the stand targeted much more footfall. The discussion forum was a hybrid event, allowing for increased exchange and very productive conversation between students and staff.

Two academic integrity awareness weeks were held, with further punctual outreach sessions provided by champions. In this regard, posters, quizzes and questions for a comment board were all designed by the student champions and can be used again. The second awareness week was promoted on the National Academic Integrity Network (NAIN) and the project as a whole received national coverage as part of the  QQI Academic Integrity Update in September 2024. Moreover, a social media post designed by the champions for a competition organised by the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) won a prize and was published on their website, garnering further international recognition for the project. The project has: (i) helped improve student understanding of what academic integrity means (use of quizzes, comment board, interaction with champions, competition); (ii) built awareness of existing and evolving resources (through the project website); (iii) developed new sustainable resources that speak to a student perspective (posters, quizzes, testimonials); (iv) raised awareness among teaching staff of the student perspective and concerns (surveys, discussion forums); (v) established a model for training and support of student champions, in collaboration with UCD Student Advisory Service and Mentoring Programme; (vi) worked with numerous stakeholders across the university, benefiting from different areas of expertise and knowledge exchange as a single extended community: UCD Teaching and Learning, UCD Library, UCD Writing Centre, UCD Student Advisory Service and Mentoring Programme, UCD Student Partnership Forum, other related SATLE projects within and beyond the College.

Resources

The project website Students as Champions of Academic Integrity provides a comprehensive set of links to available resources for academic integrity. Posters, quizzes, student testimonials and staff views all feature on the website.