Concepts of Intellectual property, academic integrity and plagiarism are hallmark of Western cultures of education. Critical thinking, creativity, originality in ideas have always been valued in Western cultures of education [3]. Non-native English speakers from different cultures are not familiar with these western concepts. International students come from various countries across the globe and not all students are familiar with the Western cultures of education. As an international student adapting to these new ways of education has been a difficult task in the beginning as an international student.
Plagiarism is the theft of someone else’s intellectual offspring: their language, ideas, or research [1]. Due to the day to day technical advancements in 20th century; Students have wider access to the knowledge related to various fields. Students from diverse academic backgrounds are using this extensive information to support their schoolwork. This resulted in an increase in plagiarism.
In academic life words, ideas and research are the main forms of currency as they represent “intellectual property” [1]. Academic-integrity can be defined as ownership of integrity through attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that support the role of the entire academic community in promoting a climate of integrity rather than simply being the responsibility of professors [4]. Deficits in academic integrity are typically found when a student’s work is evaluated against the Western benchmark because the students tend to experience new system and are supposed to adapt the new techniques in short frame of time. Students often get confused on how to represent the data [3].
Academic honesty objectifies student’s attitude towards the education. It helps students discover, analyze, assemble and express their ideology. The education system in my country is entirely different from what we are experiencing in terms of culture. According to my personal experience, education system in India lacks academic honesty, because the system is inclined more towards scores rather than knowledge acquired. Hence students tend to plagiarize to acquire good scores. Being an international student, most of my schooling is done in non-western culture where we are allowed to memorize and plagiarize in order to get good scores. This affected my academic honesty, but after experiencing the western culture I realized that plagiarism is inversely proportional to the good scores and intellectual property.
Plagiarism may occur intentionally or unintentionally.[2] Some of the common reasons for intentional plagiarism are poor time management skills and negligence towards study. Unintentional plagiarism is most commonly committed by the international students because of lack of English proficiency for Non-native English speakers, confusion on how to write, and lack of practical knowledge on citations.
Transparency and Communication are the key tools to minimize plagiarism in the graduate school. The international students should be clearly explained about what is plagiarism, what can be the consequences of plagiarizing and what can be done to avoid it. A board of committee should be organized which deals with the problems of the plagiarism. The committee should take up the responsibility to train students new to western cultures of education with the help of experts and provide them with the confidence that they can put forth their ideologies clearly even after avoiding plagiarism.