Status and Details

This page contains information about the status, approval and implementation of this document, contact details for enquiries about document application/interpretation, and a brief summary of changes between this and the previous version.

Academic Integrity Procedure

Show Field Notes

Status	Current	Indicates if this version of the document is in effect (Current), yet to come into effect (Future), or expired (Historic).
Effective Date	5th August 2021	This is the date on which this version of the document came into effect.
Review Date	2nd August 2024	The next review of this document is scheduled to commence on this date.
Approval Authority	Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education	The noted authority approved this is version of the document.
Approval Date	4th August 2021	This is the date on which this version of the document was approved by the authorised authority.
Expiry Date	Not Applicable	This is the date on which this version expires. It may still apply, conditionally, after this date.
Policy Author	Connie Merlino Academic Registrar	This is the officer generally responsible for day to day administrative matters.
Policy Owner	Connie Merlino Academic Registrar	This is the senior officer with responsibility for the document.
Enquiries Contact	Academic Policy	General enquiries should be directed to the officer/area listed.

Summary of Changes from Previous Version

In 2019, Internal Audit completed a review of Academic Integrity at RMIT and made a series of recommendations to improve the University’s ability to respond to emerging challenges in this area that are prevalent across the sector. Three of the audit recommendations involved establishing an Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure to encapsulate: principles, values, staff and student roles and responsibilities, key concepts (including academic integrity), prescribe expected behaviours, connect breaches with compliance process, and provide best practice approaches to identify manage and prevent breaches.

A structure for the Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure was considered and endorsed by Academic Board in November 2019 following sector benchmarking to determine best practice institutional approaches to academic integrity.

The Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure: defines key concepts, promotes a positive culture of academic integrity, establishes staff roles and responsibilities, links significant academic integrity breaches to misconduct processes, prescribes key preventative measures across the organisation to avoid breaches of academic integrity, and articulates processes and provides tools for managing breaches of academic integrity inclusive of educative and best practice approaches.

The Academic Integrity Procedure provides significant guidance on prevailing academic integrity breaches. For each type of breach, the procedure provides a process for its identification and management - including assessing severity and escalation as well as utilising academic and professional judgement. Processes are provided for the following types of academic integrity breaches:

- failing to appropriately acknowledge sources and plagiarism

- contract cheating or ghost writing

- collusion or unauthorised collaboration

- falsification and fabrication of information

- attempting to gain unfair advantage in a supervised assessment.

The procedure includes linkages to the Student Conduct Policy where breaches are repeated or determined to be serious in nature. The procedure also provides links to a range of existing resources and guidance materials written for both staff and students including: Academic Integrity websites, the Academic Integrity Awareness Module and Library resources.

Clauses Amended:Procedure: All