Academic integrity

Academic integrity breaches

Monash University follows a multi-stage process to resolve suspected cases of academic misconduct. The breach investigation process is central to upholding the University’s commitment to academic integrity.

Monash staff only

These resources are restricted to Monash staff only. You must be logged into your account. If you are unable to access them, open an incognito window and enter the URL. This will force a Monash authentication screen to appear, granting you access.

Supporting your students View

Communicate openly and honestly with students

It is important to create a culture of academic honesty, respect, trust, fairness and responsibility in your teaching and assessment. A slide-pack has been prepared to help you talk to your students about academic integrity. The slides define and explain the expectations of Academic Integrity at Monash with links to student support resources. Download and customise the slides to suit your discipline and unit.

Complete the MEA Module Supporting academic integrity in your teaching.

This module provides key information about academic integrity at Monash over a range of topics, including definitions of integrity and breach, educative and preventive strategies, and detection and investigation of breach. You may find that you return to complete different topics or review information as you encounter different scenarios and situations.

Resources and services available to students

A number of services at Monash can help students learn about and maintain academic integrity. Breaches of academic integrity often arise as a result of skill deficits and desperation, rather than deliberate attempts to cheat.

Compulsory Unit Modules - Academic Integrity and Respect at Monash

Both Australian and Malaysian new students need to complete the compulsory unit on academic integrity. If you are teaching a first year unit or have new students in your unit, you can share the link to these modules for them to complete.

Learn HQ: maintain academic integrity

Suite of resources to help students apply and maintain principles of academic integrity at Monash. Students will learn what academic integrity is and why it is important, what to do and avoid in order to maintain it, and how to avoid unintentional breaches.

LearnHQ: Using artificial intelligence

Advice for students about the reliability of artificial intelligence, how it can be used responsibly and ethically and how its use can be acknowledged in student work.

Counselling service

Share this link for counselling services so that students can obtain additional support around a number of issues from managing motivation, coping with stress and/or anxiety, prioritisation and managing perfectionism.

Related technologies View

Monash supported technologies to support academic integrity.

eAssessment

Monash has two supported assessment platforms: eAssessment and Moodle (ELMS). Both in-semester and end-of-semester timed assessments can be delivered via either platform, however, there are many advantages to using the eAssessment platform for your assessments. Centrally timetabled final assessments should be delivered via the eAssessment platform wherever possible.

Turnitin

Turnitin is a Moodle-integrated similarity checking system that compares the text components of submissions, such as essays or reports, against an extensive database of past student submissions, websites, and publications including journal articles and government reports.

Programming similarity-detection software

The recommended systems by the Faculty of Information Technology for code similarity are EdStem (via the lessons feature) and JPlag. MOSS is also an option where the programming language is not supported by EdStem or JPlag. This guide provides information about recommended similarity detection systems by the Faculty of Information Technology. It compares and contrasts the tools MOSS and JPlag to help you select an appropriate similarity matching system for programming assessments.

Note

The software listed below are not centrally supported but are available for academics to use for free.

JPlag

JPlag is a similarity-detection system which compares pairs of student submissions (whether single files or sets of files in a folder) together through small blocks and uses colouring to highlight similarities between them. JPlag can detect similarity even where efforts have been made to hide this. Unlike MOSS, JPlag has a limited set of common languages (though this can be extended) and runs on your personal computer which avoids potential bottlenecks. Like MOSS, JPlag will also compare comments within code. This guide provided by the Faculty of Information Technology explains how to use JPlag.

MOSS

MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) is a similarity-detection system which can compare pairs of student submissions (both single file submissions and folders) against one another using small blocks and highlighting similarities. Similarity is detected even when work has been made to attempt to subvert detection (e.g. changing variable names, function order, etc.). Similarity detection is processed over the MOSS server which can lead to bottlenecks especially for large numbers of student submissions. MOSS is capable of handling most common programming languages and compares comments (i.e. text-based documentation). Instructions for how to do this can be found in the MOSS guide, provided by the Faculty of Information Technology.

Note: MOSS sends student submissions to a separate server so identifying information should be redacted.

Related resources View

Academic integrity is closely integrated with the way we write and design assessment tasks. To learn more about how you can support academic integrity through assessment practice, view the following resources:

How-to design for academic integrity

This guide outlines how to design assessment for academic integrity, build authenticity into tasks, scaffold understanding of assessment, scaffold understanding of assessment, and target assessment security.

Faculty workbook: Assessment & academic integrity policy and procedures

This document outlines key information and changes that are associated with six procedures and what they may mean for your work. There are different implications depending on your role, for example if you are a chief examiner, unit coordinator or academic staff member or if you are a professional staff member who supports education.

Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Resources

TEQSA has produced downloadable resources and materials to promote academic integrity and communicate about the consequences of cheating.

Relevant policies and procedures

Monash has specific policies and procedures related to academic integrity. Take the time to review these to inform your teaching practice.

Assessment and academic integrity policy

This policy describes the principles of assessment at Monash University to maintain academic standards of student achievement, support students in their academic development and uphold standards of academic integrity.

Student academic integrity procedure

This procedure outlines the University, staff and students responsibilities to ensure academic integrity, as well as defines types of breaches, states methods for detecting breaches and explains the procedure for dealing with suspected breaches.

Marking and feedback procedure

If a marker suspects there has been a breach of academic integrity in relation to an assessment task, they must stop marking the assessment and refer the matter immediately to the chief examiner or nominee for academic integrity. This procedure also details security and record keeping for marked assessments.

Student Academic and General Misconduct: Hearing and Appeals Panels Procedure

This procedure applies to all reports of academic misconduct and general misconduct. This procedure sets out the requirements for student misconduct panels in handling allegations of academic or general misconduct and student appeals panels in handling appeals against the findings or penalties of academic or general misconduct.

Impact on student learning				Impact on educational knowledge		Impact on educational environment
Effective teaching and learning	Responsive program design	Student- centred orientation	Professional learning engagement	Pedagogical content knowledge	Education research performance	Education innovation	Education leadership
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Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Academic integrity