Poor academic practice is an academic integrity incident where the activity:
- Is reasonably judged to be a minor and unintentional departure from accepted scholarly conventions or failure to comply with assessment guidelines
- Is characterised by inexperience, lack of student knowledge, or poor academic skills
- Occurs in the normal course of learning the techniques, methodologies, and presentation conventions that are accepted within a discipline area
- The impact of the incident does not compromise the purpose or integrity of the assessment.
This differs from academic misconduct, which is an activity which has the purpose or effect of providing the student with an unfair advantage in assessment.
Poor academic practice is a matter of academic judgment by subject coordinators, typically occurring as part of the marking process. The subject coordinator may ask you to discuss your work as part of identifying poor academic practice, as well as to assess whether academic misconduct may have occurred.
If a subject coordinator decides you've engaged in poor academic practice, they'll:
- Explain the nature of the incident and advise you that repeating the same behaviour could be considered a breach of academic integrity
- May refer you to learning resources or support services to help you strengthen your academic skills
The subject coordinator may also:
- Adjust your marks based on the assessment criteria, for example, deducting marks for poor referencing where this is a part of the assessment rubric
- You may be allowed to resubmit the assessment. Where you would otherwise fail the assessment, the resubmitted work may be capped at 50% to allow you to pass.
Importantly, the adjustments outlined above aren’t penalties. A penalty can only be applied after a formal disciplinary process has taken place. This is in line with the Student Academic Integrity Policy (MPF1310), Academic Board Regulation, and the processes that support it.
