Where to from here? On the borders of academic integrity, academic misconduct, and assessment security after GenAI

This paper evaluates the findings of a series of student focus groups on academic integrity conducted at an Irish university during the 2023–24 academic year. Findings suggest that contemporary Higher Education learners tend strongly to associate the concept of academic integrity with the avoidance of misconduct in summative assessment. While a majority of participants conceived of academic integrity as something requiring episodic attention, a minority thought of it as an intrinsic disposition essential to the entire practice of being a student. This minority of students also considered academic integrity to be a community value requiring participation and cooperation from all members, where those who thought of academic integrity as an event rather than a disposition were more likely to think of it as an individual responsibility. While specific questions on the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) were not put to the focus groups, participants frequently raised it as a source of confusion regarding how academic integrity should now be enacted. We read this in the context of the ongoing academic debates on assessment validity and security and on the ethics of GenAI in education, and find that our participants’ lack of clarity around the legitimate uses of GenAI in their practice betray an urgent need for reorientation toward academic integrity as a holistic and intrinsic facet of being a Higher Education student.