Dos and don’ts of academic integrity

Do: acknowledge your sources

Acknowledging your sources means:

• taking your own notes from scholarly sources that you want to use, noting down references
• rephrasing ideas into your own words.

Don't: plagiarise

Plagiarising is:

• copying another person’s ideas, data, or writing without appropriate attribution
• taking a paragraph of text from someone and mixing the order of the words around to make it sound different
• reusing work that you have submitted for a previous assessment (this is resubmission).

Do: be accurate with your information

Being accurate with your information means:

• copying down data, quotations and other scholarly sources that you intend to use
• referencing where you found them.

Don't: make up information and use it in your assessment

Making up information is falsifying it. This happens when you:

• alter a data set, certificate or document
• add to existing data, document or certificate
• fabricate results.

Do: always do your own work

Don't: pay someone else to do your assessment

Asking or paying someone to help you with your assignment is called contract cheating and it happens when you:

• pay for commercial providers to write some or all of your assignment
• ask others like family or friends to write some or all of your assignment for you.

Do: collaborate with care

Collaborating carefully is:

• being clear about and recognising each group member’s individual contribution
• checking whether you are being assessed as an individual or group in your assignment.

If you are being assessed individually, discuss verbally with your group but write separately and individually.

Don't: collude

Collusion happens when you:

• collaborate with others to do work that you were meant to do as an individual
• write notes in a study group together and let more than one person use the same notes in their assignment
• ask another student to do your work for you.

Do: work together in the right way

• Work with other students in study groups but make notes individually.
• Share ideas verbally and problem solve with others.

Don't: facilitate academic misconduct

• Allow others to copy your notes.
• Share your results or data.
• Share assessments (even past ones).
• Share your answers.

Do: be clear what is allowed

• Find out what you are allowed to bring into an exam.
• Rely on your preparation. A sense of desperation may increase the tendency to cheat.

Don't: cheat on your exams

• Bring material into exams that you know is not allowed.
• Use electronic or other devices that are not permitted during exams.
• Speak to or connect with others during the exam.

Do: research and acknowledge sources

• Look at websites to see how other coders approach problems.
• Acknowledge the influence of the original source either in your documentation or in the comments within the code, acknowledging the author, location and date of publication, by citing the website/repository/software in the required referencing style according to your assessed task instructions

Don't: use others people’s code

• Copy code from other students.
• Share code with other students.
• Re-use code found on the web without acknowledgement.
• Pay a service to write code for you.

Do: take your own notes

• Summarise the key ideas in your own words, using dot points wherever possible.
• Always cite any ideas or words that you use from others, including information such as page number, book title or DOI.

Don’t: copy straight from the text?

• Copy small or large pieces of text and use it in your assignments.
• Forget to reference any words or ideas of others.
• Forget to include the full reference details in your work.