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Improving legislative framework vs emphasizing the culture of quality – the pathway to solving the challenge of academic integrity

Two-day seminar entitled “Plagiarism in higher education – awareness, threats and consequences” was held at the University of Donja Gorica on February 26th and 27th organized by National Erasmus+ Office in Montenegro, and at the initiative of Higher Education Reform Expert Team (HERE).

This event brought together representatives of the academic community, students, policymakers in the field of higher education, as well as other relevant stakeholders.

Guest lecturer prof. Mohammad Khalil from the University of Bergen in Norway introduced the participants to the complex phenomenon of plagiarism, the challenges that technological development and artificial intelligence bring with them, as well as the European Union policies that regulate this matter.

Representatives of the academic staff exchanged their views with student representatives when it comes to respecting the principles of academic integrity, with the message that repressive measures and detection of violations are important, but not as effective as raising a culture of integrity. They agreed that often more focus is placed on checking students than teaching staff.

During the second day of the seminar, Deputy Director of the Agency, Milica Kavedžić, presented of role of quality assurance in connection with academic integrity. Within the presentation, she gave an overview on the international perspective when it comes to the introduction of legislation that regulates the field of academic integrity, pointing out that the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) in the last Bologna Proces Implementation Report highlighted Montenegro as the unique country in the European higher education area (EHEA) that adopted the Law on academic integrity.

She stated that the Agency plays a significant role in promoting the values and principles of academic integrity by using the holistic approach in a way that sees academic integrity as a part of external quality assurance, but not exclusively through monitoring whether higher education institutions have mechanisms and policies, but tries to act as a bridge between the Ethics Committee and higher education institutions, raising public awareness of the importance of respecting the concept of academic integrity.

Also, Deputy Director informed participants about the Agency’s previous activities in this area, especially from the aspect of introducing an additional standard in quality assurance procedures, which defined mechanisms for checking and strengthening the quality culture. On this occasion, she introduced the participants to the pilot evaluation conducted by the Agency in cooperation with the Council of Europe and the Ethics Committee, in which all higher education institutions in Montenegro participated in the period from February to September 2023.

Finally, she stated the fact that higher education institutions, in the majority of cases through pilot evaluation, demonstrated the fulfillment of the criteria, however, despite this, the institutions emphasize that the fulfillment of the principle of academic integrity remains a day-to-day topic.

Therefore, in the conclusion, she stated that our society is facing the challenge of a necessary shift in paradigm from an approach to begin studies in order to archive diploma, to an approach of knowledge enhancement. This change is aimed at emphasizing the culture of quality, to which all stakeholders in the higher education system should provide full support.