Academic Integrity Policy

PURPOSE

This policy includes the framework and legislative requirements for ensuring the academic integrity of staff and students at Leaders Institute (LI).

PRINCIPLES

LI ensures that:

•  this policy is clearly explained during student orientation, staff induction, and professional development activities;
• students complete the academic integrity quiz and list their results on the title page of every assessment;
• students sign the Assessment Academic Integrity Declaration that registers their awareness of this policy;
• this policy is included in content of core introductory units and during at least one tutorial in all units;
• all assessment items except quizzes and exams are submitted via a Turnitin™ portal on the relevant Moodle™ webpage, unless the Unit Coordinator has approved otherwise;
• students are required to keep copies of all drafts of their assessment items and produce them if required by the lecturer or Unit Coordinator;
• the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools must be ethical, transparent, purposeful, and uphold the principles of academic integrity and reference the use accordingly;
• using AI tools to complete assessment that is not the student’s original work is academic misconduct, unless the lecturer has permitted this in writing;
• a holistic educative approach is taken for students in their first semester of enrolment and specifies penalties for breach of the policy for students after their first semester of enrolment;
• responses will be prompt, transparent, equitable, and fair;
• penalties will be appropriate and proportionate, considering intentionality;
• confidentiality is maintained by all parties within the constraints of allegation, investigation, and appeal processes.

While this policy outlines penalties for different offences, other factors may also be relevant. The designated decision maker will exercise professional judgement on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes, a more lenient or more severe penalty may be appropriate, depending on the circumstances.

Penalties for staff academic misconduct will take account of the fact that academic staff are expected to have learned ethical conduct earlier during their academic journey.

DEFINITIONS

Academic Cheating Service: A service, commercial or otherwise, which assists students to form a substantial part of an assessment task that students are required to personally undertake. Assignment-writing websites are academic cheating services.

Academic Integrity: The honest and respectful engagement with learning, teaching, research, and scholarship. It is an essential moral code to be upheld by the academic community inclusive of staff and students. It ensures that academic work is original and authentic and completed only with the assistance allowed.

Academic Misconduct: Behaviour that conflicts with the principles of academic integrity and leads to an unfair advantage. Types of academic misconduct may include plagiarism, contract cheating, exam cheating, duplicate submission, artificial intelligence, text-spinners, techniques to disguise plagiarised work, fabrication, impersonation, academic fraud, solicitation, and promoting the breach of academic, collusion, and non-compliance with exam or test instructions/requirements.

Cheating: Any dishonest actions to gain advantage, such as:

• use of unauthorised assistance materials, or equipment in undertaking assessment items, including use of any academic cheating service;
• being impersonated by another person, or impersonating another student;
• acquisition and/or distribution of any assessment item or assessment item information, or part thereof, not yet released by the Unit Coordinator;
• providing or receiving information that is prejudicial to fair and equitable conduct of any test or exam, including providing or receiving information about the content of a test or exam before one or more students have sat the test or exam;
• tampering, or attempting to tamper with research work, exam papers, unit content, grades, or other student documentation;
• failing to abide by any reasonable instruction or direction issued by a Unit Coordinator, lecturer, or tutor in relation to any assessment item or any person, supervising a test or exam;
• aiding others in breaching this policy, including but not limited to:

– allowing one or ore other students access to any material to be submitted or that has been submitted by a student in relation to an assessment item;

– assisting another student in breaching this policy.

Collusion: Collaborating with two or more students, or a student and any other person(s), on individual (not group work) assessment item with intent to cheat, plagiarise, or engage in academic misconduct.

Contract Cheating: Contracting/allowing another person or using AI to complete part or all of an assessment or exam. Contract cheating includes paid and unpaid arrangements made through a third party. A third party may include a friend, family member, fellow student, staff member; or commercial service, such as a tutoring company, document sharing website, editing service, or an assignment writing service.

Misrepresentation: Making false claims in relation to assessment items, such as:

• submitting an assessment item that was written in whole or in part by another person, although based on the student’s ideas (ghost writing);
• submitting an assessment item that was wholly or substantially copy edited by another person, paid or unpaid, unless approved by the Unit Coordinator and acknowledge by the student;
• overuse of direct quotes, even if appropriately cited, to the extent that the assessment item cannot be considered the work of the student;
• providing references that are not cited in the body of the assessment items and/or that cannot be readily identified with the argument put forward;
• falsifying quotes, data, or analyses used in an assessment item.

Plagiarism

• copying word-for-word phrases, sentences or paragraphs without citing the source (verbatim copying);
• copying word-for-word phrases, sentences or paragraphs, changing a few words without citing the source (sham plagiarising);
• paraphrasing phrases, sentences or paragraphs without citing the source (dishonest paraphrasing);
• submitting an item that is the same or substantially the same as that submitted by the student in the same or another unit without permission of the Unit Coordinator and without citing the source (self-plagiarising);
• submitting an item that is the same or substantially the same as that submitted by another student in the unit either in the same or another offer of that unit (recycling);
• submitting an item that is wholly or substantially written by another person, paid or unpaid (contract cheating);
• inadequate, inconsistent or incorrect citation and/or referencing of sources, close paraphrasing and/or copying where there is no evidence of intent and where the plagiarism is not more than 5% of the text (incidental plagiarism).

Solicitation: When an individual offers, encourages, induces, or advertises for a staff member or student to contract, commission, pay, procure, or complete on their behalf, research or assessment tasks and items that are likely to result in their use for the purpose of cheating, misrepresentation, and/or plagiarism.

Other Academic Misconduct: This may include but is not limited to:

• use of recorded lectures (audio and/or visual), Powerpoints, or other class notes in a way that infringes another person’s privacy or intellectual property rights e.g. by publishing or distributing a recording without permission from the lecturer;
• offering or accepting bribes (money or sexual or other favours) e.g. for admission or for grades or research results;
• fabrication, falsification, and misrepresentation of information, including research data and source material;
• not meeting required research standards, including conducting research without ethics approval, or conducting research in an unethical manner.

DETECTION

Any person may report a complaint of misconduct by a staff member or student to the lecturer, Unit Coordinator, Program Director, or relevant supervisor. Although moral and legal copyright to student assessment or research materials is vested in that person as the author, the student, by enrolling in an accredited course, provides an implied consent to LI which authorises:

• reproduction and storage of electronic material which they may author and submit as part of their course assessment; and
• scanning this material for purposes of detecting, through software processing or other methods, any plagiarised material used in assignments.

SEVERITY OF BREACH

LI considers three levels of severity in the breach of academic integrity:

Minor breach

Does not jeopardise the integrity of assessment. As a guideline, it affects up to approximately 15% of the assessment item in the professional judgment of the Unit Coordinator. A minor breach is considered incidental plagiarism and is likely to reflect poor academic conduct rather than academic misconduct and results from misunderstanding of or limited attention to academic conventions, from carelessness or neglect, rather than intention to deceive.

Moderate Breach

This may jeopardise the integrity of assessment. As a guideline, it affects between approximately 15% to 25% of the assessment item in the professional judgment of the Unit Coordinator or is a repeated minor breach after a student’s first trimester of enrolment.

Major Breach

This jeopardises the integrity of assessment. As a guideline, it affects more than 25% of the assessment item in the professional judgment of the Unit Coordinator or is a repeated moderate breach.

Scope

All staff and students

Key Stakeholder

All staff and students

Procedures

Breaches of this policy and actions taken will be recorded in the Student Academic Misconduct Register or Staff Academic Misconduct Register, as relevant.

Where plagiarism is incidental, a student may lose marks as indicated in a marking guide or rubric. There should be enough feedback for a student to understand the reasons for the loss of marks. The student might be referred Student Support for assistance in understanding what is appropriate citation and referencing.

Where a student breaches this policy in their first semester of enrolment, an educative approach will be taken. The student will be required to attend a meeting with the Unit Coordinator or Student Support Officer to refresh their knowledge and understanding of the policy and what constitutes appropriate academic practice. Following the meeting, the student will be offered an opportunity to resubmit the assessment item (or sit a supplementary test or exam), by a date determined by the Unit Coordinator. The maximum mark will be 50% of the marks available for that assessment item. Failure to attend the meeting, resubmit, or resit assessment, without good reason supported by appropriate documentation, will result in a mark of zero for that assessment item.

Where the maximum penalty for a breach is failure in one or more units, the penalty should be complemented by education as outlined above. In determining the penalty, consideration should be given to ‘cascading’ effects on course progression and completion.

Where a breach of this policy does not involve incidental plagiarism and where the breach is not in the first semester of enrolment:

• An allegation of breach of this policy will be made by the Unit Coordinator initially by phoning the student. The Unit Coordinator should provide enough detail for the student to understand the substance of the alleged breach and should be given an opportunity to respond immediately if they wish to.
• If the student does not answer or return the call within two working days a written allegation will be provided within five working days of the attempt to phone the student.
• The student will have 10 working days from receipt of the written allegation in which to respond. The student should provide as much detail as possible in their response, including drafts of the work in question.
• If the student fails to respond within 10 working days, a penalty as specified in Schedule 1 may be applied. Where the designated decision maker is the Program Director, the Unit Coordinator will prepare a recommendation.
• If the student acknowledges the alleged breach or if the student’s response fails to satisfy the Unit Coordinator that there has not been a breach of this policy, a penalty may be applied as specified in Schedule 1.
• If the student wishes to appeal the decision, they have the right to access the Grievance and Appeals Policy. The student should provide as much detail as possible in support of their case, including drafts of the work in question.

RESPONSES TO STAFF BREACHES

If academic misconduct by staff is determined, then disciplinary action may follow. If the staff member wishes to appeal the decision, the Staff Grievance Policy should be followed.

SCHEDULE 1

Maximum Penalties for Student Breaches of Academic Integrity

Type of Breach	Severity of Breach	Maximum Penalty	Designated Decision Maker	Notes
Incidental plagiarism	Minor	Nil	Unit Coordinator	Student may lose marks where citation and/or referencing is an element in a marking rubric.
Breach by student in their first semester of enrolment	Minor, moderate, or major	Nil	Unit Coordinator	Student may lose marks where citation and/or referencing is an element in a marking rubric. Student may have a mark of zero recorded if they do not attend a meeting and/or fail to resubmit or resit by specified date. Maximum marks for resubmit or resit is 50%. Breach noted on student file.
All other breaches detected prior to graduation	Minor	Nil	Unit Coordinator	Student may lose marks where citation and/or referencing is an element in a marking rubric. Student may have a mark of zero recorded if they do not attend a meeting and/or fail to resubmit or resit by specified date. Breach noted on student file.
	Repeated minor, single unit	Fail assessment item	Unit Coordinator	Breach noted on student file
	Repeated minor, multiple units	Fail units	Program Director	Breach noted on student file
	Repeated moderate, single unit	Fail units	Program Director	Breach noted on student file
	Repeated intermediate, multiple units	Fail units	Program Director	Breach noted on student file
	Major	Fail unit	Program Director	Breach noted on student file
	Repeated major, single unit	Exclusion for up to one year	Registrar	Breach noted on student file
	Repeated major, multiple units	Exclusion for up to two years	Registrar	Breach noted on student file
	Intermediate or major after a period of exclusion	Exclusion for up to three years and/or cancellation of enrolment
Any breach detected after graduation for which the maximum penalty would be exclusion and/or cancellation of enrolment		Withdrawal of testamur	Governing Board, on the recommendation of the Registrar	The graduate is invited to surrender the testamur. If they decline, legal notice of withdrawal of the testamur shall be served at the last-known address of the graduate. Student file noted.