Your responsibility as a student or staff member of the University is to adhere to academic integrity and the Code of Conduct.
What is Academic Integrity?
Academic integrity is a moral code guiding academic endeavour and engagement. It involves the generation and communication of information in an ethical, honest, fair, respectful and responsible manner.
Academic integrity is fundamental to the University’s mission of excellence in learning, teaching and research, whereby students and staff develop knowledge, understanding and skills while demonstrating due regard for the work of others.
Academic Integrity means:
All assessments and academic work submitted by students must be their own independent work. Any ideas or content sourced from other people’s work or produced by generative artificial intelligence, or other tools, must be appropriately attributed and referenced and not presented as their own.
The faculty and staff of the University and its colleges will support you in maintaining the standards of academic integrity by modelling the standards of academic integrity and providing you with training on academic integrity. You can ensure you act with academic integrity by appropriately acknowledging your own work and the work of others, always aiming to act with academic integrity throughout your studies and asking your lecturer if you are unsure of the expectations.
Any suspected breach of academic integrity will be reported to the relevant Academic Integrity Officer at the College or School for an investigation.
Academic Misconduct means:
A breach of academic integrity standards.
Examples of breaches of Academic Integrity
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the use by one person of another person’s work as though it is the first person’s own work without appropriate attribution.
Example of Plagiarism
A student participating in an assessed online forum is reading a great book or website regarding the discussion. They copy a paragraph of the text word for word and insert this into the online forum discussion without referencing.
This is plagiarism.
Contract Cheating
Contract cheating involves a student engaging or seeking to engage another party, either paid or unpaid, to produce work on behalf of the student to gain an assessment advantage.
Example of Contract Cheating
A close friend or family member who is a clergyperson is interested in helping a student with their assignment. The student talks at length with them, then the friend offers to write a page of the essay. The student accepts this page, includes it and submits the whole essay as their own work.
This is contract cheating.
Recycling
Recycling is the submission of academic work which has previously been presented for assessment or publication whether in whole or in substantial part in order to gain unfair advantage. An unfair advantage does not exist when, for example, an assessment task requires the revision, re-drafting or development of work previously submitted for assessment.
Example of Recycling
A student is required to write an essay on the Trinity. They copy a section from a paper they wrote for a different unit on the Holy Spirit and include it as a section of the new essay. While the section on the Holy Spirit is their own work, submitting work again is recycling (or self-plagiarism).
Fabrication
When a person deliberately creates a purported or non-existing information or documentation and represents them as actual data.
Example of Fabrication
A student is editing an essay before submission when they realise a source is not cited. They cannot find the original material so they make up a reference for that source.
This is Fabrication.
Learn more about Academic Integrity
Upon commencement at the University, your home College or School will require you to complete an introduction module on Academic Integrity.
Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
Related information
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Culture and Integrity
Fair treatment, justice, encompassing diversity and supporting those who are vulnerable are all part of the University’s culture, anchored in Christian tradition.
Appeals
As a member of the University you have the right to seek a review of or to appeal a decision of the University regarding assessment, admission to a course, or other academic decision.