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Overview and responsibilities

At a glance

Explore what academic integrity means at Monash and identify the responsibilities held by everyone in the Monash community, teaching staff, Chief Examiners and students. Understand how to report suspected breaches and find practical tips for upholding academic integrity in your teaching.

Academic Integrity at Monash

Academic integrity is a set of values and practices that expect us to act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility (TEQSA, 2021) as a part of the Monash community. While academic integrity is commonly expressed as a set of academic conventions (such as referencing and citations) or through reference to dishonest practices (such as plagiarism and collusion), the practice of maintaining integrity in academic, professional, personal and research domains is much broader.

The academic integrity strategy at Monash is underpinned by three core dimensions which recognise that academic integrity is complex and multi-faceted.

Select the plus icons to learn more about each dimension.

Every member of the Monash community is responsible for upholding the values of academic integrity in different ways as collaboration, honesty and fairness underpin our behaviours and decisions (Monash 2030, Assessment and Academic Integrity Policy ).

Expand the accordions to learn more about the responsibilities and roles different members of the Monash community have to play relating to academic integrity.

Everyone in the Monash community, whether a student, staff member or affiliate View

All Monash staff with teaching responsibilities (including guest lecturers) View

Monash students View

There are additional roles within the university that relate directly or indirectly to academic integrity, including academic integrity officers, responsible officers and leadership.

Expand the accordions to learn more about upholding academic integrity

Tips for upholding academic integrity View

Academic integrity doesn’t just happen! Like all learning, we need to scaffold students’ knowledge development and model the appropriate behaviours for students. Here are a few things to bear in mind.

"Academic integrity relates to a set of values and practices situated within disciplinary and professional communities of inquiry and practice…we cannot expect students to act in ways that are respectful of academic integrity if we don’t explain what it is, why it is so important, and teach in ways that reflect its importance." (Sefcik, Striepe & Yorke, 2020, emphasis added)

Remind students where they can learn more about academic integrity. Send them to the student academic integrity modules.
Evidence shows that students are less likely to cheat when they feel connected to, and supported by, their educators (Bretag et al., 2018).
Tell students that you want them to succeed; that you want to see what they are capable of, and have designed the assessment to help them consolidate and demonstrate their learning - to you and to themselves. You have put the time in to developing the task and will spend a lot of time marking their submissions - they owe it to you and to themselves to share their own learning and skills in their submission - not someone else’s.

3 - Outline your expectations

Design assessment for academic integrity. Provide clear information about the format, content areas and timing of the task, as well as example questions. Clarity reduces anxiety.
Don’t allocate many marks for academic language use, or citing and referencing unless these are key learning outcomes in your unit.
Marks may be allocated for selection of and reference to relevant and clearly identified sources, but should not be given for mechanics of citing and referencing itself.
Explain submission points, drafting processes and support students in using Turnitin to improve their understanding of academic integrity.
Provide a space for your students to ask questions anonymously. They might not want to show that they are still confused about an academic integrity concept, but it is crucial they have the opportunity to seek help if they need to do so. Moodle discussion boards can be set to anonymous postings, or a Padlet board or Google Form can achieve the same aim.
Make sure students know how they can contact you directly for advice or information, if they don’t understand what you have already provided. If a student has posted on a forum and received a response they don’t understand, they may not follow up in the same space. Advertise your virtual (Zoom/Chat) office hours and make sure students have an easy guide to booking an appointment with you.
Monash provides free services which give students appropriate support and help them to develop and maintain their integrity.
- Students can book in for a one-on-one session with a Learning Adviser
- Virtual Zoom appointments (Monash Malaysia Library)
Remind students that sites offering assistance with researching, writing or editing assignments (especially in exchange for money) are usually really providing services to help students cheat - though they often won’t word it that way. These sites often advertise via social media (including Facebook, WeChat, Twitter), and sometimes even target or message students directly in response to key words used in posts or tweets.
Encourage students to speak to each other about this topic, and to encourage their friends to seek help or advice from trusted, reputable sources (such as through your discussion forum or through learning advisers) if they get stuck, rather than searching on the wider internet.
Link students to special consideration policies and where to submit, and give them information and links to easily access.

Action to avoid	Type of breach
Asking someone else to complete a task, or part of a task, for them (whether that person is paid or not).	Collusion or contract cheating
Completing a task for someone else (whether paid or not).	Collusion or contract cheating
Completing a task as a group (including a virtual group) when it is supposed to be completed alone.	Collusion
Sharing questions or answers to a quiz, test or exam with others.	Collusion, unauthorised distribution of course-related materials or scheduled final assessment misconduct
Accessing questions or answers to a quiz, test or exam from other students, including those in previous years or other tutorial groups.	Collusion
Submitting work that has been prepared by someone else, even if that person is an ‘adviser’ or ‘tutor’ for an online ‘help’ site.	Plagiarism
Submitting text, code, compositions, designs or other ideas that have been published or shared by others, without clearly indicating who the originator was, and which aspects are the originators work.	Plagiarism or fraud
Resubmitting work that has already been submitted for assessment at Monash or elsewhere, in any unit - unless your assessment is structured in such a way that this is appropriate (e.g. staged tasks where Part B builds on Part A).	Self-plagiarism

10 - Encourage conversations about academic integrity

The proportion of students self-reporting contract cheating varies from 3.5% (Curtis & Clare, 2017) to 8% (Foltýnek & Králíková, 2017). Everyone is NOT doing it!
Of 54 assignments purchased online, 52% of them failed to meet the standards for a passing grade, even though several were ‘premium’ level. Many were also delivered late, and failed to include aspects requested by the purchasers (Sutherland-Smith & Dullaghan, 2019).

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For themselves	Reduced learning, limited or zero marks, conditions on enrolment, suspension or exclusion, notes on permanent record which could affect job applications and future prospects, professional practice implications, contract cheating sites blackmailing students in the future.
For other students	Reputational damage to Monash devalues everyone’s degrees.
For staff	Investigating breaches takes time away from other students, and from their families; reputational damage indirectly affects their jobs

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