Honor Codes in Higher Education Academic: A Comparative Study of Selected British, American and Iranian Universities

Many reputable universities around the world have imposed laws to prevent academic dishonesty. However, in the higher education system of Iran has not yet developed a comprehensive legislation to prevent the lack of scientific integrity. This study compared the academic honor codes of selected American, British and Iranian universities to pave the way for preparing an honor code system for Iranian higher education system. The research method was descriptive- comparative. The research population was all American, British and Iranian universities. Four universities were selected from each country as research sample. The data were compared based on two main components of academic honor codes (goals of academic honour codes and examples of academic dishonesty). The differences and similarities of two main categories were identified in the selected universities.The data were analyzed using George Bredy's method. The results showed the main importance of the honor code legislations is the promotion of the scientific integrity. The results also showed cheating, plagiarism, collusion, forgery or falsification of data, multiple submission and facilitation of academic dishonesty are the main real instances of the rules of the honor codes. The first step for preventing academic dishonesty and internalizing academic integrity in universities, we should develop an academic hounr code system. Therefore, Iranian universities should have specific laws and policies to institutionalize academic integrity, to value it in academic society and also to prevent the behavior of academic dishonesty.