• Section 1 - Purpose
• Section 2 - Application
• Section 3 - Roles and Responsibilities
• Section 4 - Principles of Academic Integrity
• Section 5 - Academic Integrity Education
• Section 6 - Academic Integrity Breaches
• Cheating
• Collusion
•  Contract cheating and impersonation
• Fabrication or falsification
•  Misrepresentation through documentation
• Plagiarism
• Self-Plagiarism (re-use of own work)
• Section 7 - Classification of Academic Integrity Breaches
• Section 8 - Poor Academic Practice
• Section 9 - Management of Poor Academic Practice
• Section 10 - Supporting Academic Integrity
• Assessment design
• Technology
• Verification of assessment
• Authentication of learning
• Section 11 - Recordkeeping and Reporting
• Section 12 - Definitions
• Section 13 -  Relationship to TEQSA Threshold Standards

Section 1 - Purpose

(1) Maintaining academic integrity is vital to QUT’s reputation and the reputation of its graduates. The purpose of this Policy is to: 

1. define academic integrity and articulate its importance; 
2. provide a framework to ensure that academic integrity standards are taught and maintained and that any failure to maintain the expected standard is dealt with in an appropriate, consistent, fair and equitable way; and  
3. meet the University’s obligations under the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021. 

Section 2 - Application

(2) This policy applies to:

1. all undergraduate, postgraduate coursework and non-award students of QUT; and
2. research higher degree students when undertaking the coursework component of their study and to the academic work related to the research component of their study. 

(3) For research higher degree students:

1. this Policy applies when undertaking the coursework component of their study;
2. this Policy applies when undertaking academic work related to the research component of their study;
3. this Policy does not apply when undertaking the research component of their study. Integrity matters of research higher degree students are addressed in the QUT Code for Responsible Conduct of Research and in the Managing and Investigating Potential Breaches of the QUT Code for Responsible Conduct of Research Policy. 

Section 3 - Roles and Responsibilities

Section 4 - Principles of Academic Integrity

(4) Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner which is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

(5) QUT is committed to maintaining high academic and professional standards and expects its students to undertake academic work and assessment in a manner which promotes academic integrity.

(6) The principles of academic integrity are: 

1. Educative: QUT supports its students to develop an integrity based approach to academic work and assessment by ensuring that students are educated in respect of the University’s expectations, and they are supported to meet those expectations. The approach to academic integrity is educative and preventative. QUT provides resources and support for students and staff with the aim of instilling the values of academic integrity. 
2. Evidenced: Academic integrity is a valued graduate capability and therefore QUT courses promote academic integrity by linking curriculum and assessment with academic integrity and the development of professional capabilities. Assessment is designed and conducted in such a way as to assure and sustain the integrity of the assessment process. Courses have a minimum of verified identity assessments (see Academic Integrity Protocol – QUT staff access only). 
3. Equitable: Conduct that is a breach of academic integrity is clearly defined and QUT provides transparent processes for the investigation of possible breaches of academic integrity and penalties are appropriate, fair and equitable.   
4. Everyone is responsible: The maintenance of academic integrity is the responsibility of all members of QUT’s community. Through an educative approach and transparent processes, QUT aims to deter conduct that fails to maintain the expected standards of academic integrity and encourages the disclosure of wrongdoing. Upholding academic integrity protects the standards and reputation of QUT – its students, graduates and qualifications. 

Section 5 - Academic Integrity Education

(7) QUT has an educative approach to academic integrity and supports students to understand how to approach their academic work and assessment in a way that upholds appropriate standards of academic integrity by: 

1. requiring all undergraduate and coursework postgraduate students to complete a mandatory module on academic integrity in the first teaching period of their course; 
2. requiring all undergraduate and coursework postgraduate students returning to study at QUT after an absence of two years or more, to complete a mandatory module in academic integrity in the first teaching period of their return to study;
3. providing students with discipline specific guidance and resources where relevant to develop understanding of appropriate standards and practices of academic integrity; 
4. fostering a learning environment based on mutual respect and trust between academic staff and students; 
5. adopting an educative approach to resolving cases of poor academic practice; and  
6. providing practical tools and resources that enable students to self-assess their compliance with appropriate integrity standards prior to submitting assessment items. 

(8) A student who has completed and passed the mandatory module on academic integrity will be determined to have an awareness of the standards of academic integrity at QUT.  

Section 6 - Academic Integrity Breaches

(9) A breach of academic integrity is conduct, intentional or unintentional, that fails to demonstrate ethics, fairness, honesty, respect and accountability when undertaking academic work and assessment.  

(10) A range of conduct may fail to uphold the standards of academic integrity and be classified as a breach.

Cheating

(11) All forms of cheating, including, but not limited to: 

1. having access to or accessing unauthorised material during assessment; 
2. any unauthorised communication by any means with others during assessment; 
3. copying or reading another student's examination work;  
4. copying and sharing questions or answers during assessment; 
5. cutting and pasting prepared answers or unauthorised material in an online examination; 
6. obtaining or seeking assistance from a third party to complete the assessment when it is not authorised; 
7. providing another student with assistance to complete the assessment when it is not authorised; and 
8. failing to comply with standards of conduct during examinations in a way which may compromise the integrity of the examination (Examinations Policy).  

Collusion

(12) Collusion involves unauthorised collaboration on assessment items with any other person/s. Collusion includes, but is not limited to: 

1. working with others to produce assessment work where such collaboration is not specifically authorised in the assessment requirements; 
2. knowingly allowing own assessment work to be copied by another student; 
3. sharing completed or draft answers to summative assessment items, where it is reasonable to expect that the material, wholly or in part, will be submitted for assessment by others;
4. sharing detailed examples of work related to assessment items, where it is reasonable to expect that the material will be submitted for assessment by others; and
5. obtaining or reading others’ completed or draft assessment work to gain an unfair advantage.

 Contract cheating and impersonation

(13) Contract cheating involves outsourcing the solution for assessment, wholly or in part, to a third party whether or not for a fee, other remuneration or benefit. Contract cheating includes, but is not limited to: 

1. submitting assessment that has been obtained, wholly or in part, from a commercial service; 
2. submitting assessment that has been obtained, wholly or in part, from another person; 
3. submitting assessment that has been produced or modified, wholly or in part, by an artificial intelligence tool, algorithm, or computer generator where such actions are not authorised in the assessment task;  
4. producing or supplying assessable work or materials for submission by another person;  
5. promoting the services of a commercial service that provides solutions for assessment; 
6. It is a breach of academic integrity to engage in conduct that supports contract cheating, including, but not limited to: 
   1. providing a commercial service with an assessment task or solution, wholly or in part; and 
   2. file-sharing of learning and teaching materials, which include the intellectual property of QUT or another party (Copyright Policy). 
7. It is not considered file-sharing if all of the following conditions are met: 
   1. the material does not contain any third party intellectual property or if it does, such material is appropriately acknowledged; 
   2. it is sharing learning and teaching material directly with another QUT student for personal study purposes; 
   3. the material is not an assessment task; and  
   4. the material is the student’s own interpretation of the resources provided in the unit. 
8. Impersonation is a form of outsourcing assessment and therefore is a breach of academic integrity. Impersonation involves a third party undertaking an examination or other assessment, online or in person, on behalf of a student.

Fabrication or falsification

(14) Fabrication or falsification is an intentional misrepresentation related to academic work. Fabrication and falsification include, but is not limited to: 

1. making up information for an assessment task when not authorised by the assessment task; 
2. creating data that should have been created from an activity undertaken in the assessment; 
3. inventing sources of data, evidence or ideas by citing irrelevant or non-existent sources; and 
4. making false declarations to meet assessment requirements, including falsifying attendance or participation. 

 Misrepresentation through documentation

(15) Misrepresentation through documentation involves the intentional alteration or fabrication of documentation to obtain a benefit in assessment or other benefit related to enrolment at QUT. Misrepresentation through documentation includes, but is not limited to: 

1. misrepresenting, altering, falsifying or fabricating a medical certificate to obtain an academic concession (Student Academic Concessions Policy); or  
2. misrepresenting, altering, falsifying or fabricating a document to gain admission or enrolment into a course or unit or to withdraw from a course or unit.  

Plagiarism

(16) Plagiarism involves representing as one's own work the language, ideas or expressions of another person or persons. Plagiarism includes: 

1. direct copying, summarising, or paraphrasing another’s work without appropriate acknowledgement, reference or citation; 
2. using, adapting or developing an idea or hypothesis from the work of others without appropriate acknowledgement, reference or citation; 
3. copying or adapting non-text based material created by others, such as diagrams, designs, musical score, audio-visual materials, artwork, plans, code or photographs without appropriate acknowledgement, reference or citation; 
4. using another person/s experimental results without appropriate acknowledgement, reference or citation; and 
5. using software to disguise plagiarism (washing).

Self-Plagiarism (re-use of own work)

(17) Self-plagiarism involves the re-use by a student of their own work, partially or wholly, that has been assessed, without appropriate acknowledgement of the source or permission of the Unit Coordinator.

(18) Students must seek express consent from the Unit Coordinator prior to re-using their own work in an assessment submission, noting that this is permitted only in situations where all of the following conditions are met: 

1. the work has not previously resulted in the student receiving credit towards the completion of an award at QUT or any other education provider, and has not been submitted for completion towards any form of non-award study; 
2. the work is not currently being assessed for the student to receive credit towards the completion of an award at QUT or any other institution; 
3. the work was the product of the student’s own endeavours and did not involve group work or collaboration with others; and 
4. re-use of the previous work does not otherwise defeat the purpose or objectives of the assessment task. 

Section 7 - Classification of Academic Integrity Breaches

(19) QUT recognises, as part of its educative approach, that conduct that breaches academic integrity may be the result of inexperience and/or misunderstanding and may not be done intentionally or recklessly.

(20) A breach of this Policy is a breach of Code of Conduct - Student. A breach of academic integrity is classified as either poor academic practice or academic misconduct. Poor Academic Practice is addressed according to this Policy and academic misconduct is managed in Management of Student Misconduct Policy.

(21) The classification of the breach takes into account the experience and conduct of the student, the impact of the conduct upon the ability to judge the student’s achievement of the learning outcomes in the assessment and other relevant circumstances. Relevant circumstances include, but are not limited to: 

1. extent – how much of the assessment item is in question (for example, a few sentences or several paragraphs); and what proportion of the assessable work in the unit the assessment item represents (for example, 10% or 50-60%); 
2. level – at what level is the student in their course and what academic integrity education has been provided; 
3. knowledge – the student's exposure to the accepted practices, and cultural norms (for both domestic and international students); 
4. discipline – what are the accepted practices in the student's discipline and the extent to which these practices have been made clear to the student; and 
5. recidivism – whether the student has previously failed to uphold appropriate standards of academic integrity.

Section 8 - Poor Academic Practice

(22)  A finding of poor academic practice may occur when all of the following conditions are met: 

1. the conduct that is a breach of academic integrity is collusion, plagiarism, self-plagiarism or supporting contract cheating by file-sharing; 
2. the student does not have three previous findings of poor academic practice recorded on the Academic Integrity Register; 
3. it is reasonable to decide that the student has made a genuine attempt to comply with the standards of academic integrity; 
4. the conduct does not appear to have been engaged in with the intention of defeating the purpose of the assessment and may be judged to be unintentional, careless, or an oversight, due to an evidenced lack of understanding or inexperience or as the result of significant mitigating circumstances;  
5. the conduct cannot impact other students; 
6. the extent of the poor academic practice does not defeat the purpose of the assessment; and 
7. it is possible to determine the student’s achievement of the learning outcomes independent of the poor academic practice.  

(23) A determination of poor academic practice may be found even if the student has completed and passed the mandatory module on academic integrity and had previous findings of poor academic practice recorded against them. However: 

1. If an undergraduate student has three findings of poor academic practice recorded in the Academic Integrity Register, any further findings will be treated as academic misconduct and managed under Management of Student Misconduct Policy, unless the student is within the first 96 credit points of their undergraduate study at QUT.  
2. If the student is within the first 96 credit points of their undergraduate study at QUT and has three findings of poor academic practice recorded in the Academic Integrity Register, a further finding of poor academic practice may not be treated as academic misconduct if the conditions set out in the Academic Integrity Protocol (QUT staff access only) are met. 
3. If a coursework postgraduate student has three findings of poor academic practice recorded in the Academic Integrity Register, any further findings will be treated as academic misconduct and managed under Management of Student Misconduct Policy. 

Section 9 - Management of Poor Academic Practice

(24) Findings of poor academic practice should be dealt with promptly. 

(25) Management of poor academic practice involves: 

1. poor academic practice identified by teaching staff and confirmed by Unit Coordinator and academic integrity officer; 
2. Unit Coordinator and academic integrity officer make recommendation to Head of School of educative action; 
3. poor academic practice and outcome recorded in the Academic Integrity Register; and 
4. warning issued to the student with educative outcome required. 

(26) As part of the University’s educative approach, a student is issued with a warning of poor academic practice and may be required to: 

1. complete additional training in academic integrity; 
2. resubmit the assessment, correcting the poor academic practice; 
3. submit alternative assessment to demonstrate academic integrity standards; and/or 
4. remove materials from a file-sharing service.

(27) The approach to managing poor academic practice is educative, raising a student’s awareness of relevant standards. Therefore, the educative approach for poor academic practice does not include the imposition of a penalty and this includes the deduction of marks. 

(28) If the assessment item demonstrating poor academic practice is marked, it will be judged according to the assessment criteria (rubric) and any part of the assessment that is not the student’s own academic work will not contribute to the mark of the item.

(29) There is no review of a finding of poor academic practice as the outcome is educative to support students in understanding and maintaining the standards of academic integrity. 

Section 10 - Supporting Academic Integrity

(30) To support the principles of academic integrity and its educative approach, QUT adopts a range of practices. 

Assessment design

(31) Assessment is designed and conducted in such a way as to assure and sustain the integrity of the assessment process. All courses include a minimum number of verified identity assessments as specified in the Academic Integrity Protocol. Assessment rubrics include reference to appropriate standards of academic integrity as relevant to support student learning. 

Technology

(32) To support the principles that the standards of academic integrity are equitable and that it is the responsibly of everyone, technology may be adopted to assist in identifying potential breaches of academic integrity. This includes technology to detect plagiarism, the use of artificial intelligence, and technologies that support verification of student identity and proctoring.

Verification of assessment

(33) To support the principles that the standards of academic integrity are evidenced and that it is the responsibly of everyone, reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that students are upholding the standards of academic integrity. 

(34) Verification of assessment may be implemented in a unit to evidence monitoring of academic integrity and to assure the design of the assessment. A verification of assessment is not necessarily based upon a suspected breach of academic integrity but may lead to an investigation of possible breach.

(35) The form of verification will normally involve the academic discussing the students’ work with them within five working days of the submission of the assessment. The purpose of the verification process is to satisfy the academic that the assessment was the work of the student.

(36) Verification of assessment is appropriate when the assessment is online and non-invigilated. If verification is to be included in a unit, this must be clearly communicated to the students before the assessment and an appropriate number of students must be included with a balance of representation of the student cohort in the unit.

Authentication of learning

(37) If a Unit Coordinator has reasonable concerns that a student’s actions could be classified as academic misconduct, the Unit Coordinator may require the student to authenticate their learning.  The authentication process must provide the student with an opportunity to demonstrate their competence or knowledge in the subject matter of the assessment item in question, in a manner that is appropriate to the nature of the assessment item. 

(38) This might include (but is not limited to) the Unit Coordinator: 

1. requesting the student to provide evidence of resource materials used in the production of the assessment, such as notes, drafts, sketches, concept drawings and reading materials; 
2. conducting a viva in which the student’s task-related learning is tested; and/or 
3. requiring the student to undertake a practical exercise under supervision. 

(39) The following conditions apply to the authentication of learning process: 

1. It should be conducted as soon as possible after the Unit Coordinator has identified that they have reasonable concerns that the student's actions may be classified as academic misconduct. 
2. The student will be sent a written request specifying the requirement to authenticate their learning, the method for doing so, and the required timeframe in which the authentication is to occur. 
3. The Unit Coordinator will conduct the authentication process and document the outcome, indicating whether or not the student has successfully authenticated their learning with respect to the subject matter of the relevant assessment item. An academic integrity officer may support this process. 
4. The Unit Coordinator may seek advice, where appropriate, from learning and language educators or other experts in reaching a conclusion about whether learning has been authenticated. 
5. If the student does not participate in the authentication of learning process, they may be deemed to have not authenticated their learning. 

(40) The Unit Coordinator will consider the outcome of the authentication of learning process in determining whether the alleged breach of academic integrity has been substantiated or whether it is more appropriate to classify the conduct as poor academic practice. 

(41) If authentication of learning has not been undertaken or attempted, a Faculty Academic Misconduct Committee may refer a case back to a Unit Coordinator to conduct an authentication of learning process, provided that no findings have yet been made on the allegations by the Committee. 

Section 11 - Recordkeeping and Reporting

(42) A finding of poor academic practice is recorded on the Academic Integrity Register. Consistent with the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, records must be maintained for cases of academic misconduct. 

(43) An annual report on academic integrity is prepared and presented to University Learning and Teaching Committee.

Section 12 - Definitions