Question 1
Academic integrity refers to a set of standards that every scholar is expected to adhere to. It means being honest and taking responsibility in academic work. The principle of honesty means that all scholarly work must be from ones hard work and efforts, and any other person’s work that an individual includes in his or her academic work must be acknowledged properly. Failure to adhere to this renders that academic work plagiarised. Intellectual property rights, on the other hand, cover copyrights, trademarks and patents. They are a set of laws that protect an individual’s intelligence and own creation. For instance, it protects works of musicians, artists, inventors and authors from being copied by other individuals for their own benefit.
It is of great advantage to involve academic integrity and intellectual property in scholarly and marketing aspects because of several reasons. One of these reasons, if considered in the scholarly approach, is the use of the internet which has become a very common with the advent and increased usage of technology. Most learning materials are today found in the internet and hence there is a high chance of plagiarism. Plagiarism is whereby people take other people’s published or unpublished work and try to reproduce them as their own. This poses as a major challenge for many scholars and even lectures and supervisors of different fields as it is increasingly becoming difficult to use electronic learning as it is hard to know when one has done their own work. Therefore there is the need of the practice if integrity in any academic works and to also prevent plagiarism from occurring, use of intellectual property rights is very important. This also helps to discourage people from committing plagiarism due to the legal consequences of the act.
The contemporary world is marred with the advertisement and sale of products that tend to infringe on the features of established products. This is often done by dishonest firms, which aim at gaining profitability from counterfeiting recognized brands of products by supplied established firms. In addition, a lot of products are normally advertised through the internet. This is due the widespread use of technology. However, people in the modern world are becoming increasingly unscrupulous. The advertisement and sale of counterfeit products has been on a rising trend. Intellectual property rights help in reducing this situation since there are several legal mechanisms of redress for violation of patented, trademarked or copyrighted products. This will boost the culture of healthy business competition by encouraging use of creativity and innovation by firms.
Question 2
There are different ways of promoting academic integrity in any learning environment. The responsibility of emphasizing, modelling and assuring there is the existence lies with both the teaching staff and the students. Members of the teaching staff are well-placed to be able to teach, model and assure integrity in any student’s academic assignments. They can reduce the occurrence of academic dishonesty by instilling in their students a sense of originality in any of the work that they do. This can be done by letting the students know the value of integrity, and develop some sanctions that will be imposed on the students in case they violate academic integrity. The instructor should also have a classroom environment that promotes integrity.
On the other hand, the students should have a culture of being ethical. This is because no matter how much their tutors attempt to model the students into having academic integrity, they still have the choice to be honest or not. The people with academic integrity normally work with honesty, sincerity and are ethical. This means that they take full credit of their work and also give full credit to other people who have helped them when doing their work, or those whose work has been incorporated.
Summary of the Discussion
In a nut shell, academic integrity is very important from both scholarly and marketing perspectives. It allows students to do their own work while appreciating the work of others without not necessarily duplicating their work. It entails acknowledging the contributions made by other people in their topics of interest. Intellectual property rights, on the other hand, allows creative individuals and firms to take advantage of their innovations while without interference from other parties. This enhances the spirit of honesty in both the academic and business aspects of the society.
References
United States Patent and Trademark Office. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.uspto.gov
