MOOC summary

FIRST WEEK - WHAT IS INTEGRITY

In the first week, ‘What is integrity’, we looked at general and detailed definitions of integrity. This included thinking about the reasons why integrity is so important.

Understanding your expectations as a student and what you can expect from your place of study and teachers and tutors was also covered, this is important to help you understand your place in your own learning and in modelling and learning about integrity.

Then we talked about how to apply these principles of integrity in the work that we do individually, in groups, with other students and with colleagues in the workplace. We thought about the appropriate boundaries of collaboration and developing cultures of honesty in the places where we live, work and study.

Second week - developing academic skills for integrity

‘Developing academic skills for integrity’ was the second week where we looked at how we can work in a way that shows our academic skills and ensures that work is completed and presented with integrity.

Examples were given for how to summarise and how to paraphrase, where we looked at different ways of doing this and why this is important so that your work and the work of others are clearly represented.

Then we looked at referencing and citation and the specific styles that you can use to show other people where your sources or quotes came from originally. We presented different styles and used the APA example to work through how to cite different types of sources, from books and book chapters to blogs and podcasts.

Following this we looked at concepts related to assessment styles and methods, to give you foundational knowledge of what requirements might be placed on you in different types of assignments. This included thinking about written, design, oral and practice assignments and what action words might be used by teachers and tutors to get you to show different skills and knowledge that you will have developed over your course.

Finally, we looked into Author’s right, Copyright and Open Licences to understand the differences between content which can be used and circulated and others that require specific permission.

Third week - defining misconduct, study skills and seeking help

In the third week, ‘Defining misconduct, study skills and seeking help’ we talked about concepts surrounding what might be breaches of integrity and the skills that you need to have for your learning.

Firstly, we looked closely at what a Code of Ethics and Conduct is, and specifically what is included in ours at Politecnico di Milano. We talked about our values and learnt what they mean and how they apply to our community.

Next, we looked very specifically at types of misconduct and how/why they are breaches. We defined the different sorts of misconduct which can be cheating and in what circumstances they can occur when integrity standards are not followed.

Then finally, we considered what your place in your learning is. We talked about the responsibility that you need to take as a student who has chosen to enrol in a tertiary or higher education course and what skills you might need to develop to be successful in your studies. The skills we explored moved beyond the academic skills covered in week two and included things that will help you in your life beyond your studies as well. Part of this was in understanding when you need to ask for extra help and making sure that you find out what help you can access and from where.

Finally, we looked into Author’s right, Copyright and Open Licences to understand the differences between content which can be used and circulated and others that require specific permission.

That brought us to the end of the course.