Academic misconduct continues to be an issue of concern. However, the pandemic and emergency distance learning brought focus on research showing 200% increase in usage of commercial answer sites (Lancaster and Cotarlan, 2021), as well as the fact that the level of students using contract cheating might be as high as 10% (Curtis et al., 2021).

Interventions across institutions include honour codes, detection-and-punishment, course-embedded modules, workshops etc. Some are designed to combat; others to develop a culture of integrity. Proactive measures such as interactive learning modules act as a deterrent for such behaviour (Owens and White, 2013; Cronan et al., 2017; Stephens et al., 2021). Benson et al. (2019) and Lowe et al. (2018) highlighted how existing modules don’t cover all aspects of academic integrity values and policies. Many simply had websites with content or used external MOOCs, which were static “click and select” modules with some animation and multiple-choice questions.

While having a learning module is a proactive step to building a culture of integrity, it is crucial to understand how students learn and interact with content. Making students “active learners” and partners in the journey can help ensure they understand what is being taught while embracing integrity (Freeman et al., 2014). Moving away from text-heavy, traditional teaching modules, albeit online, can help achieve this.

This is where the concept of video games and the principles of game design come in (significance).

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This project aims to create a game-based system (GBS) to educate students on academic integrity values. This educational GBS will not only be engaging and student-centred but also ensure learning objectives are met. The GBS will help build a culture of integrity by:

– including altruistic purposes into the narratives (academic integrity and ethics fundamental values);

– including games with features as per initial feedback from the target audience (such as – but not limited to to counterpoise competition/challenges and learning purposes, to include group dynamics even with anonymity, to design levels/progression over the course of the modules, to include consequences for the actions taken, to develop an attractive rewards system that can include a leaderboard)

The project partners with the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI)’s Gamification of Academic Integrity Working Group, led by a UOWD faculty and aims to extend preliminary work reported in Khan et al. (2021) on understanding gamification of academic integrity to develop learning modules using gamification and test the effectiveness of such application across campuses through deployment, observation and feedback using ENAI questionnaires for students pre- and post-modules.