Glossary of academic integrity terms

This means that staff and students understand and demonstrate the values of 'honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility' (TEQSA 2021), and apply these values in their work at the University.

This is a register held by institutions such as universities. When a student has been found to have committed either a minor breach or a more serious breach, their name is recorded in this register. It indicates that a student has received a formal warning from the University of the potential consequences if they breach academic integrity again.

If your name is on the register, it will not be shared with others. This information is held within the institution. However, some professions (for example, the law profession) require students’ breaches to be reported at the time of considering the student for registration in the profession.

Academic misconduct means behaviour that could result in an unfair academic advantage in a course or unit. Examples include submitting work that isn’t representative of your own academic abilities (e.g. because you bought it or got help).

This is when you have demonstrated poor academic practice that does not uphold integrity.

What types of breaches do not uphold academic integrity?

Common types of breaches are:

• plagiarism and resubmission of previous work or self plagiarism
• collusion and unauthorised distribution (sharing behaviours that go wrong)
• contract cheating, fraud and final assessment misconduct (deliberate attempts to gain advantage).

Cheating can come in many forms, and can occur in exams and other types of assessments. To cheat could be to copy the work of others, to get someone to do your assessment for you, or to bring unauthorised materials into an eExam.

Cheating breaches academic integrity and Monash University has various methods of detecting it. It is a very serious offence and could result in suspension or exclusion from the University.

Collusion means unauthorised collaboration on assessments (written, oral or practical) with other people. Collusion may be with another Monash student or with people outside university. This also includes sharing and copying notes, and offering to complete work for other students instead of collaborating (e.g. on team assignments).

Contract cheating is when you get someone else to do some or all of your assessment for you. This includes submitting work that you have asked or paid someone else to do, or having another person take a quiz or an examination for you. This also includes asking family members, friends or other students to help with your work, or completing work for others.

Misconduct is cheating, or trying to cheat in scheduled final assessments, including having unauthorised material and using unauthorised material during exams or trying to gain unfair advantage.

Fraud means making up results or data and using it in your assessment or publications. It can also mean making up references or using fake signatures or certificates.

Plagiarism means to take another person's ideas and/or manner of expressing them and pretend they are your own by failing to give appropriate acknowledgment. This includes material sourced from the internet, staff, other students, and from published and unpublished works, as well as lecture notes, materials, design and coding.

Resubmission means submitting work that has been previously assessed in another unit or course, even at another university. This is a form of self-plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism means reusing or resubmitting your own work that has been previously assessed. Self-plagiarism also includes reusing parts of your previously submitted or published work without acknowledging it.

Unauthorised distribution is when you facilitate academic misconduct by sharing Monash content to people external to Monash in hard copy or online, including via social media, and uploading content to commercial or free content-sharing sites. It includes sharing or borrowing previous assignment submissions with another student within the same unit without permission of the chief examiner.

This is the approach taken by a Chief Examiner when it has been decided that a minor breach of academic integrity has occurred. This means they will either disregard the portion of the work affected by the academic integrity breach and just mark what is left. Or, they will allow the work to be resubmitted for a total mark of 50 P for the assessment.