Abstract
This study explored academic integrity and plagiarism awareness among Library and
Information Science (LIS) undergraduates of Federal University Oye-Ekiti. Specifically, the
study determined the postgraduates' exposure to academic integrity and plagiarism
education, examined the level of awareness of academic integrity, assessed the level of
awareness of plagiarism, and identified the forms of plagiarism commonly practiced among
the students. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The
population comprised 632 LIS undergraduates across the 100 to 400 levels, from which
486 respondents were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data were
collected using a structured questionnaire, which was validated by experts in LIS, while
reliability was established through a test-retest procedure. Data collected were analyzed
using frequency counts, percentages, mean, and standard deviation. The findings revealed a
high level of awareness of academic integrity among the respondents, with a grand mean of
3.46. The respondents also demonstrated a high level of awareness of plagiarism, with a
grand mean of 3.43. However, the findings indicated that some forms of plagiarism were
still commonly practiced, particularly copying and pasting information from online sources
(mean = 3.22), copying information from websites without acknowledging the source
(mean = 3.21), using AI-generated content without proper acknowledgment where
required (mean = 3.10), and copying text from books or journals without citation (mean =
3.09). The study concluded that although LIS undergraduates possess substantial
awareness of academic integrity and plagiarism, a gap exists between awareness and actual
academic practice. The study recommended continuous academic integrity education,
practical training in citation and referencing, regular plagiarism-awareness programmes,
and availability of plagiarism detection software.
Keywords: Academic dishonesty, Academic integrity, Academic writing, Federal University
Oye-Ekiti, Library and Information Science, Plagiarism awareness, Undergraduates.
Publication Date: 2026-10-31