Promoting academic integrity

Good research practices have been recognized to promote academic integrity. Haaga-Helia follows the Finnish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity guidelines (TENK Finnish National Board on Research Integrity 2023) which are based on the All European Academies guidelines (ALLEA 2023). Basic principles of research integrity are reliability, honesty, respect and accountability. These principles have been thematized as follows:

1. Research environment
2. Training, supervision and mentoring
3. Research procedures
4. Safeguards
5. Data practices and management
6. Collaborative working
7. Publication, dissemination and authorship
8. Reviewing and assessment

In this article, I wish to highlight some thoughts on ALLEA and TENK guidelines with the focus on promoting academic integrity at Haaga-Helia and higher educational institutions in general.

Applied science and research integrity

In applied sciences the role of clear policies and procedures on good research practices and proper handling of suspected research misconduct and violations of research integrity is important. Applied science is often done in collaboration with public, private and third sector partners. Projects that cross different boundaries, such as citizen science or participatory research and making research at the interface of working life should ensure research integrity also outside classroom environments. Applied science is an essential part of research, development and innovation (RDI) projects both nationally and internationally and executed in different project consortiums. Thus, all project partners need to commit with integrity to the research and its results.

Data security is important to consider: access to data need to be as open as possible and closed when necessary. Academic integrity is cross-sectional including all types of publications from scientific articles to blogtexts and podcasts and everything in between.

Avoiding research misconduct

A common way to define research misconduct is to categorize it into fabrication, falsification and plagiarism. Fabrication is making up data or results and recording them as if they were real. As for falsification, it is manipulating research materials, equipment, images, or processes, or hanging, omitting, or suppressing data or results without justification. Plagiarism is using other people’s work or ideas without giving proper credit to the original source. (ALLEA 2023.) Plagiarism is rarely conscious and is more likely to happen because of ignorance of appropriate referencing practices.

APA is one of the most commonly used reference standards in universities (American Psychological Association 2024). Accordingly, Haaga-Helia´s guidelines for proper references guide to ‘always document the sources you have used with in-text citations and include them in the list of references’ (Haaga-Helia LibGuides 2024a).

Ethical use of AI

Educational institutions need guidelines for the use of AI for teachers and students. The use of AI or automated tools should be reported in a way that is compatible with the accepted norms and guidelines. One topical example of unacceptable practices includes using AI or automated tools to make content and not informing it.

At Haaga-Helia we underline that AI or language models can be used during the process of text making and editing, but there should be proper reference on how the information has been provided. Especially in research it is important to understand, that the data given to AI may be used by a service provider. Sharing a text before publishing is to be avoided as AI may present it as its own text. (Haaga-Helia 2024).

More awareness and knowledge is needed

More discussion is needed to promote ethics and research integrity. Everyone taking part in research projects should be aware of relevant guidelines and regulations and develop the necessary skills to apply academic integrity to personal research and publishing. Maybe there is a need for a specific course on the subject of academic integrity for personnel and students?

Picture: Haaga-Helia