Fostering academic integrity in your classroom

The affordances of the Internet and the advent of the ‘sharing economy’ (Richardson, 2015) have provided a fertile environment for individuals to collaborate and outsource tasks, including assignment-writing help. While this has paved the way for the construction of many highly effective support tools for students, it has also motivated behaviours that potentially constitute academic misconduct.

It’s important to take a proactive, educative approach to academic integrity rather than a punitive one. Three resources that can support you in holding a more educative conversation with your students include:

1. The Staff Academic Integrity (Foundation) training in Workday. This module developed by the Learning Skills Unit can help you:
   • understand what academic integrity is and why it matters
   • foster academic integrity in the classroom
   • understand the main types of academic integrity breaches and how to detect potential breaches.
   • be familiar with the policy and procedure for managing academic breaches at Macquarie and understand your role in dealing with breaches
   • be acquainted with ways to care for your students’ and your own wellbeing during a breach process.
2. The MQ Staff Portal and TECHE articles. These resources include strategies and tips that address academic integrity in the MQ context:
   • Academic integrity
   • Online exam cheating or just confusion?
   • Three ways to enhance academic integrity in your unit
3. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency’s (TEQSA) website. TEQSA offers free education materials and information that support academic integrity and address contract cheating:

Taking an educative approach in discussing academic integrity with students can help remind them to act with integrity in their study and future professional life.

References

[1] Richardson, L. (2015) Performing the sharing economy. Geoforum, Volume 67, 121-129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.11.004