Student academic integrity – what’s changing in 2025?

The policy and process changes took effect on 1 January 2025 and apply to all incidents reported on or after the effective date.

Key changes are:

• A new tiered approach to managing suspected breaches that aligns with sector best practice, with lower-risk academic misconduct (Level 1) managed by faculties, and higher-risk, serious academic misconduct (Level 2) escalated to a central investigations team within SASS.
• Introduction of ‘poor academic practice’, an educative approach to minor, unintentional incidents.
• Updated breach definitions of academic misconduct, responding to prevalent or emerging student academic misconduct behaviours, such as assessment outsourcing (contract cheating) and unauthorised or undisclosed use of generative AI.
• Single faculty decision-makers to hear cases of academic misconduct (Level 1), and a central Student Academic Misconduct Committee to hear cases of academic misconduct (Level 2).

The policy updates reflect sector best-practice, are informed by research into student cheating behaviours, and align with guidance from TEQSA.

The policy will be available on the Melbourne Policy Library from January 2025.

Updated accompanying communication templates, guidance materials, and enhancements to the web form and Case Management System were launched concurrently

For any policy questions, please contact the Academic Policy teamemail. If you have any questions regarding process or implementation, contact the Office of Student Academic Integrityemail.

The revised policy introduced new terminology for roles with defined responsibilities in managing student academic misconduct within faculties.

• Faculty Academic Integrity Officers (FAIO): new senior academic roles
• Case managers: identifies and formalises existing professional staff duties

Subject Coordinators are now able to identify and remediate incidents of ‘poor academic practice.’

Faculty Academic Integrity Officers (FAIOs) are senior academics (level C or above) who decide level 1 academic misconduct cases. Their key responsibilities may also include establishing standards and expectations for academic integrity within their discipline; providing guidance and support to academic and professional staff on academic integrity matters; and developing and implementing education and prevention strategies.

It is recommended that faculties also appoint a number of faculty academic integrity officers to ensure a diverse range of disciplinary expertise and appropriate distribution of workload.

Case managers are professional staff responsible for handling student academic misconduct reports, formalising many existing faculty support duties under the revised policy. Their key responsibilities include preparing case briefings, allegation notices and other relevant documents for the decision-making process and providing administrative support to faculty academic integrity officers.

Faculties are not required to establish new or dedicated case manager roles, rather it is anticipated that case management duties distributed among existing teams in line with current practice.

A new webform has been developed to be used when reporting suspected academic misconduct and new definitions of misconduct behaviours have been developed.

In addition to existing responsibilities to detect and report suspected academic misconduct, subject coordinators will now be able to identify and remediate instances of ‘poor academic practice’. This allows coordinators to use their own judgement to manage matters that they believe are minor and unintentional departures from normal scholarly conventions and does not reach the threshold for a misconduct finding.

Poor academic practice refers to minor and unintentional departure from accepted scholarly conventions or failures to comply with assessment guidelines. Poor academic practice incidents are characterised by inexperience, lack of student knowledge, or poor academic skills, and does not compromise the purpose and/or integrity of the assessment.

Importantly, poor academic practice is not academic misconduct, may be treated as an assessment matter and managed within the marking and assessment guidelines set by the Board of Examiners for the subject.

After a subject coordinator has determined that an incident is the result of poor academic practice, they must:

• Explain the nature of the poor academic practice to the student
• Advise the student that repeating the same or similar actions in the future may constitute a breach of academic integrity
• Where relevant, direct the student to an educative response.

After completing these steps, you must report the incident via the updated, simplified webform. The webform has two free-text fields. One is for detailing the incident. The other is for recording actions taken or advice provided to the student. Case managers will need to name-match the report in the case management system and can then close the record.

Records of poor academic practice can be used to identify patterns and trends. The faculty may use these to identify students who may be in need of additional assistance in understanding the standards and practices of their discipline, or where these behaviours may be indicators of other circumstances that should be addressed. The records may also be used to identify gaps in the education and resources provided to students, or to consider where improvements may be made to assessment practices.

The policy requires that Deans monitor and respond to trends in poor academic practice as well as breaches of academic integrity.

Poor academic practice is a matter of academic judgement made by the relevant Subject Coordinator. Subject Coordinators may determine poor academic practice ‘on the papers’ as they are reviewing student work. In determining poor academic practice, a Subject Coordinator may ask the student to discuss or explain their work to demonstrate authorship, and/or provide other evidence that demonstrates their authorship and learning.

Once identified, the Subject Coordinator must explain (verbally or in writing) the nature of the poor academic practice issue to the student and advise them that similar actions in the future may constitute academic misconduct. The Subject Coordinator may include a direction that the student undertake additional educative actions.

To assist Subject Coordinators in considering where the boundaries between poor academic practice and suspected academic misconduct might lie, a Poor Academic Practice Guidance document has been developed and is available on the Student Academic Integrity Network SharePoint.

For further clarification on whether a specific incident qualifies as poor academic practice or academic misconduct, Subject Coordinators should consult their Faculty Academic Integrity Officer.

In addition to faculty-specific resources, a new set of four ‘good academic practice’ self-study online modules will be available for Subject Coordinators to recommend to students from Semester 1 2025.

These have been developed by the academic skills team and provide further development in the areas of collusion and group work; referencing; time management; and the use of generative AI. They can be assigned to students by providing them an LMS link.

Yes, the revised policy advises that Subject Coordinators may delegate to a senior tutor with responsibility for student academic integrity.

Poor academic practice is a matter of academic judgement and can be determined by a Subject Coordinator on the basis of the work submitted; it does not require a meeting.

Poor academic practice is not a finding of misconduct, and no penalty may be imposed by a Subject Coordinator. A Subject Coordinator may, at their discretion, allow the student to resubmit the work they have determined to contain poor academic practice.

If, when the original work was marked against the marking and assessment guidelines for the subject, this resulted in a failing grade, the Subject Coordinator may cap the result of any resubmitted work at 50%, allowing the student the opportunity to pass, while not giving them advantage over other students.

There are no other circumstances in which a grade cap may be applied by the Subject Coordinator.

A poor academic practice determination is not a finding of misconduct, and no penalty may be imposed by a Subject Coordinator. A student who wished to contest this decision could do so in the same way as they may contest other assessment decisions made by a Subject Coordinator, to the board of examiners for that subject.

Poor academic practice is not cumulative, and there is no escalation from poor academic practice to misconduct based simply on repetition. Each incident is considered on its merits.

It is open to the Subject Coordinator to contact the Faculty Academic Integrity Officers and/or case manager to discuss the behaviour, and ask to check the students' record if relevant to their consideration of the matter.

The process for reporting suspected academic misconduct has been streamlined. While anyone can report a suspected incident, most cases will be flagged by academics during subject delivery activities like marking. For University staff, a new reporting webform has been developed to make the process simpler and more user friendly. The new form will recognise a student number and pre-fill key information, embed links to evidence guidelines and other support documents, and allows for reports of multiple students involved in the same incident without needing to complete separate forms. Reports submitted via the webform will be automatically assigned to the appropriate case management team.

Non-University staff (students, members of the public) may make reports of suspected misconduct to faculties, the Office of Student Academic Integrityemail or the Student Academic Investigations Teamemail.

After reporting suspected academic misconduct, you may be contacted to provide additional information or evidence to assist in determining if there is sufficient merit to proceed with an allegation. Depending on the case and level of misconduct, you may also be asked to clarify details related to the report or participate in further discussions.

As part of the enhancements to the reporting webform, there will be embedded links to evidence guidelines. These guidelines will provide definitions and examples of the different breach types, along with outlining the kinds of evidence that should accompany a report of suspected academic misconduct. This evidence can vary depending on the type of behaviour suspected.

Those reporting suspected academic misconduct via the webform will be asked to identify the suspected breach type and provide details of the subject(s) involved. Based on the information provided, cases are assigned by the system to either level 1 or level 2 and allocated to the appropriate team for review. During the review or investigation cases may be re-assigned by the Student Academic Integrity Investigations team.

When the revised policy took effect, it introduced a tiered approach to managing academic integrity incidents by establishing two distinct categories of academic misconduct and updating the breach definitions. This approach aims to streamline case management by differentiating incidents, and ensuring they are managed proportionately and effectively.

Based on the suspected breach type reported in the webform, cases are automatically categorised as either level 1 or level 2 and sent to the appropriate case management team. Case managers receiving a level 1 report will need to complete a preliminary review, considering the evidence provided and should consider whether the behaviour alleged, or the students’ history may suggest it should be heard as a level 2 case. If so, they should contact the Student Academic Misconduct Investigations team to discuss reassigning the case.

The Student Academic Misconduct Investigations Team is a new SASS team, reporting to the Academic Registrar. This specialist team will be responsible for conducting investigations and preparing allegations for level 2 serious academic misconduct cases. The team will provide expert advice and feedback on identifying and responding to assessment outsourcing (contract cheating) and other level 2 breach types and work closely with the Learning and Teaching Innovation team to evidence these complex cases. The team is also responsible for convening and supporting the Student Academic Misconduct Committee.

The Student Academic Misconduct Committee will hear allegations of serious student academic misconduct (level 2). It will consist of three members: two senior academic staff members and a student representative nominated by the University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) or the Graduate Student Association (GSA). All committee members must have completed the required training and be free from bias or conflict of interest. The student member must also not be a fixed-term or continuing University staff member, or staff of a student organisation.