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This paper aims to survey students and faculty from the College of Engineering at an American university in the United Arab Emirates about their perception on different issues related to academic dishonesty. Opinions were sought on plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration, cheating on exams, copyright violations and complicity in academic dishonesty. Reasons for students to commit dishonest acts and ways to reduce academic misconduct were also included.

A survey involving 11 questions with multiple choice answers was developed and distributed to engineering students and faculty at the institution to get their perception of the considered issues.

Results of the study showed that while faculty and students were generally in agreement in their perception of the frequency of academic dishonesty among students, they greatly differed on the courses of action needed to reduce them. Most faculty members favored applying tougher penalties and using more proctors in exams. On the other hand, students preferred softer approaches such as educating them on academic integrity issues, applying lenient deadlines for assignments and reducing the difficulty of exams.

The conclusions and recommendations of the study are applicable to colleges of higher education having similar characteristics and culture to the surveyed institution.

The findings can be used to understand students’ behavior and faculty’s attitude toward academic dishonesty, and to assess the effectiveness of current strategies addressing the issue at similar universities in the region.

The conducted literature review indicated that this work is believed to be a pioneering case study in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The objective of this study is to get feedback on faculty perception of ethical issues related to teaching, scholarship and service at a relatively new American‐style university in the Middle‐East.

A questionnaire involving 21 scenarios with multiple choice answers was developed and distributed to all faculty at the institution to get their opinion on the issues. The effects of faculty background, gender, rank, and administrative responsibilities on the obtained responses at the institution were considered.

The findings include: about one‐third of the faculty participants were unaware of the university's code of ethics; several of the faculty surveyed stated that they would ignore violations of an ethical code of conduct committed by colleagues; and there was no definite trend observed between the responses of faculty based on their discipline.

The study is based on a questionnaire; this implies that the faculty responses are mainly related to the questions posed in the questionnaire.

The results of the study can be used by the higher administration at similar universities in the region in order to understand and assess faculty members' reaction to situations involving ethical behaviour.

This work is believed to be the first on faculty perception of ethical behaviour at an institution of higher education in the Middle‐East.