Academic Integrity Policy - Policy Library

1. Purpose

The Academic Integrity Policy (‘policy’) affirms that all staff, students and all other members of the academic community are expected to act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. This policy (and the related Academic Integrity Procedures) aims to:

promote an ethical and honest culture in order to assure the quality of the Institution’s qualifications;
educate staff and students on academic integrity as a means to prevent academic integrity breaches;
promote good practices to maintain academic integrity standards;
address academic integrity breaches (both current and historical) consistently, robustly and promptly.

2. Scope

All prospective and current students, alumni and staff at the Institution. This policy pertains to academic misconduct. For misconduct of a general nature refer to the General Misconduct Policy.

3. Definitions

See Glossary of Terms. All definitions relating to academic integrity have been sourced or adapted from TEQSA’s Academic Integrity Toolkit.

Academic integrity: The expectation that teachers, students, researchers and all members of the academic community act with: honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.

Academic misconduct: A breach of academic integrity (e.g. all types of cheating). This may have occurred recently or in the past. Examples are listed in this Glossary of Terms and include, but are not limited to: collusion, contract cheating, exam cheating, file sharing, impersonation, plagiarism, and fabrication or falsification of data/information, recycling or resubmitting previously submitted work, unauthorised and/or undeclared use of generative artificial intelligence.

Cheating: A generic umbrella term for a range of student behaviours that undermine academic integrity. Cheating is academic misconduct. Examples are listed in this Glossary of Terms and include, but are not limited to: collusion, contract cheating, exam cheating, file sharing, impersonation, plagiarism, and fabrication or falsification of data/information, recycling or resubmitting previously submitted work, unauthorised and/or undeclared use of generative artificial intelligence.

Collusion: Unauthorised collaboration in preparation or presentation of work including knowingly allowing a student’s own work to be copied by others. Collusion involves engaging in illegitimate cooperation with one or more other students to complete assessable work. This is different to working on group assignments that are set by lecturers, whereby authorised collaboration is encouraged and a fundamental aspect of the assessment task. Examples of illegitimate cooperation include working with a friend or group of friends to write an essay or report that is meant to be an individual piece of work. It can also include sharing quiz or test questions and answers with other students, as well as written assignments like reports and essays. Illegitimate cooperation can unfairly advantage a student or group of students over others. Students should also never share their work with others as there is a risk the person it is shared with could upload it to an illegal commercial cheating service or circulate it to others.

Contract cheating: is a type of illegal cheating. It is a process where a student requests someone else to produce all or part of an assessment task that is submitted as their own work, including paid arrangements through a third party. This can include asking another person (e.g. relative or friend) to assist with an assessment task, someone else to sit an exam or having them write an essay, report or some other kind of assignment, which is sometimes referred to as ‘ghost-writing’. Actions that support illegal contract cheating services are also considered breaches of academic integrity. This includes students uploading teaching materials such as practice exams, lecture slides and assignment questions to ‘study notes’

Exam cheating: includes but is not limited to:

writing ‘cheat notes’ on a person’s body or materials taken into the exam room
attempting to copy from other students
communicating with other students or people outside the exam venue while the exam is in progress
using electronic devices to access information related to the exam while it is in progress
bringing prohibited items, such as unapproved calculators or textbooks into exams
impersonation
use of additional screens in a proctored exam (whereby proctoring software monitors a computer’s desktop).

Fabricating or falsifying information: intentional creation, and unauthorised or undisclosed alteration, of any information or citation. For example, the use of artificial intelligence platforms (such as Generative Pre-trained Transformers – GPTs) to fabricate information.

File-sharing: the unauthorised sharing of course content and assessment material on online study platforms and commercial contract cheating websites.

General misconduct: unacceptable or improper behaviour at the Institution is defined as either academic misconduct or general misconduct. General misconduct is governed by the General Misconduct Policy.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a category of AI models and systems that are designed to generate new content, such as text, images, music, or videos, that resembles human-created content. These AI models are trained on large datasets and learn patterns and structures within the data to generate new examples that are similar in style and format.

Ghost writing: Also known as contract cheating or impersonation. See contract cheating definition.

Impersonation: where a student requests someone else to produce all or part of an assessment task that is submitted as their own work, including sitting an examination. This is also known as contract cheating or ghost writing.

Misconduct: see academic misconduct.

Moderation means quality assurance, control processes and activities such as peer review that aim to assure:

consistency or comparability, appropriateness, and fairness of assessment judgments; and
the validity and reliability of assessment tasks, criteria and standards.

Moderation of assessment processes establish comparability of standards of student performance across, for example, different markers, locations, subjects, providers and/or courses of study.

Natural justice: a technical term for the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. Also referred to as a duty to act fairly.

Plagiarism: Submitting work that is not a student’s own without acknowledging, citing or referencing the original source of the work. It does not matter whether this is accidental or on purpose, whether the words are changed to make them the student’s own (e.g. use of text spinners and paraphrasing tools) or simply copy and paste. This includes the deliberate use of translation tools (including tools that convert voice / video to text), synonym generators or similar, to rephrase existing content & copying / rephrasing content from samples/exemplars of assessments found in Moodle subjects, ‘washing’, or the use of software to disguise plagiarism. When a student is using another person’s thoughts and ideas, they must reference the source material.

Procedural fairness: Acting fairly in administrative decision making. It relates to the fairness of the procedure by which a decision is made.

Recycling or resubmitting work: Submitting (or resubmitting) work that has already been assessed, without the lecturer’s permission. For example, submitting a report that a student was graded on in a first-year class as part of their work in a third-year class. If a student wants to build on their previous work (including when repeating a subject), they should discuss this first with their lecturer and the amount can only make up a very small percentage of the content submitted, and must be referenced accordingly. Also known as self-plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism: see recycling or resubmitting work definition.

4. Policy statements

4.1 The Institution takes a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach to upholding its academic integrity by:

promoting a culture of honesty and integrity in every aspect of its academic offerings;
educating students and staff on academic integrity in the knowledge that educative processes are tools to prevent breaches (training/prof development);
ensuring that staff and students are provided with necessary support;
addressing academic integrity breaches promptly, robustly and consistently.

Culture

4.2 The Institution promotes an ethical and honest culture in order to assure the quality of its qualifications.

4.3 The Institution partners with students to foster a learning environment built on mutual respect and trust.

4.4 The Institution endeavours to create an environment that make it both possible and likely that staff will promote integrity and respond to breaches if and when they occur.

Education

4.5 Academic integrity is discussed and promoted with students at all stages of their enrolment, including before assessment tasks.

4.6 Academic integrity is discussed and promoted with staff at all stages of their employment through training, performance review and professional development opportunities.

4.7 Training is provided for all students and staff on the meaning and importance of academic integrity.

Curriculum and assessment design strategies

4.8 The Institution recognises the importance of innovative assessment design to uphold academic integrity and encourage honesty. Refer to the Artificial Intelligence in Education Framework (AIED), Artificial Intelligence Policy and Use of Artificial Intelligence in Assessment Guidelines.

4.9 Curriculum and assessment practices are designed to link academic integrity with the Institution’s Learning and Teaching Principles about professionalism, accountability and transparency.

4.10 Staff are supported to redesign assessment tasks to limit the potential for students to commit misconduct, to engage students in their learning and prepare them for future study tasks and real-life responsibilities.

Support

4.11 The Institution recognises that students and staff need support and guidance to build confidence and to ensure that the highest standards of academic integrity are upheld.

4.12 The Institution aims to create an environment that make it both possible and likely that students will seek assistance from academic staff or Student Success Centre staff when needed.

4.13 Trained Academic Integrity Officers provide guidance, mentoring and consistent outcomes to academic staff and to those students who breach the policy.

4.14 The Institution recognises that additional support and assistance may be required for vulnerable groups.

4.15 Professional development opportunities are available for academic staff at all levels.

Detection of academic misconduct

4.16 The Institution provides practical resources to academic staff to help them identify and respond to academic misconduct while ensuring assessment processes can be managed promptly, without additional burdens.

4.17 The Institution uses technologies, including but not limited to text-matching software and authorship tools, to detect and respond appropriately to cases of misconduct.

4.18 Text-matching software is used consistently, across all text-based assessments, and for all students.

Handling allegations of misconduct

4.19 Breaches of academic integrity (i.e. misconduct), whether current or historical, undermines the value of the academic community, the value of the Institution’s qualifications and its reputation. Misconduct (whether deliberate or accidental, or current or historical) is considered a breach of the Student Code of Conduct and is not tolerated.

4.20 Allegations against a student are handled in accordance with this policy and, if found proven, face strict penalties.

4.21 Academic integrity breaches are investigated regardless of when they are alleged to have occurred. If misconduct is detected and found to be proven after a qualification has been awarded, the qualification may be rescinded.

4.22 The Institution responds to misconduct in a fair, consistent, transparent, and timely manner in accordance with principles of natural justice. All allegations are handled with courtesy and without fear of prejudicial treatment. Refer to the Academic Integrity Procedures.

4.23 In considering an allegation of academic misconduct, the Institution ensures that the following principles of procedural fairness are adhered to:

allegations are appropriately investigated;
the investigation process is fair, transparent and consistent;
students are provided with the opportunity to respond to any allegation against them
decisions are made and communicated in a timely manner;
decisions are made without bias;
involved parties are protected from victimisation; and
decisions are based on evidence.

4.24 A student involved in an allegation of academic misconduct has the right to formally present their case. They may be assisted or accompanied by a support person during meetings and interviews, but may not have legal representation or academic assistance. The support person is normally not permitted to speak in the meeting.

4.25 The Institution identifies four categories of academic misconduct: a warning, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. The details pertaining to each level are outlined in the Academic Integrity Procedures.

4.26 Penalties for proven cases of misconduct are consistent and fair as outlined in the Academic Integrity Procedures.

4.27 Records of investigations and outcomes are kept securely and confidentially in accordance with the Privacy Policy and Records Management Policy.

4.28 Students are entitled to review the outcome and/or penalty of a proven allegation in accordance with the Complaints and Appeals Policy.

5. Roles and responsibilities

5.1 The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) is the responsible officer of this policy and is responsible for overseeing:

the development and administration of academic integrity resources, training and support provided to students and staff; and
the appropriate management of academic misconduct.

5.2 The Academic Board monitors the effectiveness of the Academic Integrity Policy and receives regular reports, via the Learning and Teaching Committee, on academic integrity matters and misconduct data for quality assurance and improvement purposes and to monitor for any emerging threats to academic integrity.

5.3 The Dean/Associate Dean and Program Managers are responsible for:

implementing the development and administration of academic integrity resources, training and support provided to students and staff;
making decisions on academic misconduct allegations on the basis of recommendations made by the Academic Integrity Officer
referring students to the Student Success Centre for additional support.

5.4 The Student Success Centre is responsible for providing a range of student support e.g. academic skills, counselling, wellness, referrals to external providers.

5.5 The Academic Integrity Advisor is responsible for:

Acting as an authority to increase confidence in Level 3 misconduct decision making
Mentoring and upskilling Academic Integrity Officers; and
Advising on student complaints in relation to high level breach investigations and outcomes.

5.6 The Academic Integrity Officer is responsible for:

leading interviews with students and lecturers in suspected Level 2 and 3 misconduct;
compiling evidence & making recommendations to academic management;
communicating with students on interview arrangements;
being a central point of expertise, support and mentoring for academic staff.

5.7 Lecturers are responsible for managing warnings and Level 1 misconduct and referring students to the Student Success Centre for additional support.

5.8 The Learning, Teaching and Innovation team is responsible for designing learning and teaching practices that embed standards of academic and professional integrity.

5.9 Students are responsible for adopting an integrity-based approach to academic work and assessment. This includes:

completing the academic integrity module;
submitting their own work, sitting their own tests, and doing their own examinations;
completing and signing the Academic Integrity Assessment Cover Sheet for every assessment;
acknowledging the work of other people that they have used in assessments and other tasks;
following instructions for all assessment tasks, including approved (by the Institution) referencing conventions, accurate citation and submission procedures;
providing accurate and truthful documentation to the Institution; and
encouraging other students to act with integrity
seeking additional support from the Student Success Centre as needed.

6. Related documents

Academic Integrity Procedures

General Misconduct Policy

General Misconduct Procedures

Student Code of Conduct

Approved by Academic Board 18 November 2022 (updated AB on 17 June 2024)