Upholding academic integrity: addressing faculty misconduct in Malaysian higher education

Academic honesty is one of the main pillars of higher learning institutions. However, there is currently an increase in incidents of academic dishonesty committed by academicians. Many issues have arisen that question the effectiveness of addressing academic dishonesty in Malaysia, thus requiring further exploration into the underlying causes and preventive measures related to the issue. Academic misconduct by faculty members can occur in many forms. Universities expect faculty members to conduct original research, but cases of plagiarism including copying academic work from students, reusing previous journal publications without references and failing to acknowledge contributions to papers have been reported by Malaysian universities (Aliran, 2024). In the Malaysian higher education context, several factors drive academic misconduct among faculty. One reason is the publishing culture that pressures faculty to publish research in high-impact journals in order to secure promotions and research funding. In the drive to publish papers as quickly as possible, research quality is neglected. This leads to duplication of papers and plagiarism.