The Information Professional as an Ethical Sentinel: Academic Integrity, Digital Literacy, and the Artificial Intelligence Challenge in Higher Education
TL;DR
A systematic review of academic integrity research published between 2010 and 2026 is undertaken, undertaken through a distinct LIS lens to trace how information literacy frameworks, scholarly communication practices, and digital curation strategies have shaped, and been shaped by, the ongoing effort to counter academic misconduct.
Abstract
Academic integrity is conventionally framed as a pedagogical, disciplinary, or institutional policy concern, yet its foundations rest squarely upon the principles of information organisation, verification, and ethical use that constitute the core competencies of Library and Information Science (LIS). This paper reports a systematic review of academic integrity research published between 2010 and 2026, undertaken through a distinct LIS lens to trace how information literacy frameworks, scholarly communication practices, and digital curation strategies have shaped, and been shaped by, the ongoing effort to counter academic misconduct. Guided by the PRISMA 2020 protocol, an initial pool of 487 records retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, and Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) was screened against explicit inclusion criteria, yielding a final corpus of 128 peer-reviewed studies for thematic and chronological analysis. The findings trace a discernible evolution across four phases, from reactive, detection- and deterrence-based policy responses toward proactive, educational frameworks centred on information ethics, culminating in the current AI-driven phase in which authorship itself is being redefined. Four LIS-centred thematic domains were identified: information literacy instruction, digital curation and metadata as integrity tools, the defence of scholarly communication against predatory publishing, and artificial intelligence literacy. On this basis, the review advances two original contributions: it positions LIS professionals as “ethical sentinels” whose expertise in source evaluation, metadata, and digital preservation is indispensable to institutional integrity, and it proposes a new conceptual model, the Information Integrity Ecosystem, which integrates access and curation, literacy and pedagogy, verification and provenance, and equity and ethics into a single sustainable framework. Implications for LIS curricula, institutional policy, and future research agendas are discussed.