Academic Dishonesty and 4IR-Enabled Whistleblowing Systems: A Sociological Study at Higher Education Institutions.

Academic dishonesty represents a significant concern for institutions of higher education in South
Africa and on a global scale. As a solution to the issue, whistleblowing is often adopted as a measure
to combat academic dishonesty within academic institutions. With traditional whistleblowing systems,
however, lies the issue of retaliation for the whistleblower, lack of confidentiality and anonymity, and
various issues which impede the whistleblowing process. The emergence of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution and its related components such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technology
presents an opportunity to combat the issues related to traditional whistleblowing systems. As such,
this study delves into the intersection of academic dishonesty and whistleblowing systems within
higher education institutions, emphasising the importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)
technologies. It quantitatively explores the factors that may influence students’ willingness to utilise
4IR-enabled whistleblowing systems to report academic misconduct. Utilising the Reasoned Action
Approach as a framework, this research will examine the relationship between students’ attitudes,
subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and their intention to blow the whistle on academic
misconduct. The study will use a structured questionnaire to collect data from a sample of university
students, which will be analysed using statistical methods to identify significant predictors of
whistleblowing intentions. The findings are expected to provide insights into the effectiveness of 4IR
technologies, such as Blockchain-enabled whistleblowing systems, in encouraging ethical behaviour
and protecting whistleblowers within academic settings.