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Introduction

Academic integrity is important to the maintenance of academic standards for the award of a qualification and the achievement of the qualification’s learning outcomes. In this context academic integrity policy is an institution’s response to supporting student learning by educating both staff and students about responsible conduct in learning and assessment, assuring shared understandings and practices through the provision of resources and courses for all members of the academic community, providing interventions for those deemed to be at risk of breaching academic integrity, and responding to incidents of academic integrity breaches in a manner that is proportional to the breach and fosters the further development of the academic and ethical standards. The call for a holistic approach to academic integrity (Bertram Gallant 2008; Davis et al. 2009; Macdonald and Carroll 2006; Sutherland-Smith 2008) provided the foundation for the analysis by Bretag et al. (2011a) of the academic integrity policies of Australian universities. While there has been a shift in recent times from a punitive to an educative focus in academic integrity policies at Australian universities (Bretag et al. 2011a), many issues in the implementation of academic integrity policy remain.

In 2012, Bretag and colleagues responded to a commission from the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) to develop support materials, systems, and resources to address implementation issues associated with assuring academic integrity. The OLT commission was a direct response to the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) requirements that “all Higher Education (HE) Providers ensure the integrity of student assessment, the integrity of research and research activity, and prevent, detect and address academic misconduct by students or staff including cheating and plagiarism” (TEQSA Higher Education Standards Framework, Provider Registration Standards, Standard 4, Requirement 4.3 2011). Embedding and extending exemplary academic integrity policy and support frameworks across the higher education sector (Exemplary Academic Integrity Project [EAIP]) aimed to consolidate the work of the OLT-funded Academic Integrity Standards Project (AISP, 2010–2012) and extend its findings in ways that could be implemented easily by all Australian providers of higher education, both public and private.

This chapter shares the recommendations for good practice provided by representatives of Australian universities identified by the AISP as having “exemplary academic integrity policies.” Using these recommendations, the chapter proposes a conceptual framework for implementing academic integrity policy in Australian higher education institutions.

Literature Review

Universities are operating in a competitive environment (Atlbach et al. 2009) characterized by a diverse student body and resource pressures. Breaches of academic integrity appear to be commonplace in universities (Brimble & Stevenson-Clarke 2005; McCabe and Bowers 1994; McCabe 2005; Marsden et al. 2005; Treviño et al. 2012), and these breaches have the potential to undermine the values and goals of higher education (Hughes and McCabe 2006). Concerns for maintaining academic standards and academic integrity (DEEWR 2011; TEQSA 2011) are at the forefront of Australian higher education policy dialogue.

According to Freeman (2013), the term “institutional policy” refers to formal statements of principle which provide the overarching rationale for actions, procedures, or operations. Policy is complemented by secondary institution-specific policy instruments such as procedures and guidelines (Freeman 2013). In the Australian context, there is a range of interrelated policy and procedure instruments used to manage academic integrity and influence student behavior (e.g., student charter, assessment policy, assessment submission and return procedures, and examination procedures, including invigilation and reporting of breaches, among others). Assessment design, while not necessarily under the remit of “policy,” is also a key driver of learner behavior and therefore a critical complement to academic integrity policy. Clark et al. (2012) suggest that institutional policies are vital as a means of promoting legal and regulatory compliance, informing all members of the academic community of their rights, responsibilities, and procedures, and “as a standard by which institutions are judged in litigation” (Clark et al. 2012, p. 12).

Given that the primary role of policy is to influence the behavior of individuals and organizations, an effective academic integrity policy (Brimble and Stevenson-Clarke 2005; Devlin 2006; East 2009; Gullifer and Tyson 2014) is a crucial element of a multipronged approach to enable institutions to foster academic integrity.

The AISP analyzed the publicly available “stand-alone” academic integrity policies of 39 Australian universities to determine the “five core elements” of exemplary policy: access, approach, responsibility, detail, and support (Bretag et al. 2011b), the specifics of which are provided in full in the “Discussion” section.

Research on particular forms of academic integrity breaches such as plagiarism emphasizes the need for student education (Blum 2009; Carroll and Appleton 2001; Harris 2001; Gilmore 2008; Sutherland-Smith 2008). Treviño et al. (2012) and Bretag et al. (2013) advocate an alignment of values and academic integrity policy with a focus on educating both staff and students in the creation of a community of integrity. This is in line with calls for more student engagement and participation in both the development of policy and its implementation (Mc Cabe and Makowski 2001; Bertram Gallant 2008).

Originally established in 2002 as the Joint Information Systems Committee’s Plagiarism Advisory Service, the renamed PlagiarismAdvice.org provides a range of resources to assist higher education institutions benchmark their own practices, particularly in relation to the application of penalties for plagiarism, against others in the UK. In 2011 the Higher Education Academy (UK) developed 12 recommendations for implementing academic integrity policy (HEA 2011), including staff engagement and development, student education, a cross-institutional group dedicated to academic integrity, and a centralized record-keeping system.

Recommendations from both the Australian and UK contexts echo the work of Bertram Gallant who, in collaboration with the International Center for Academic Integrity, has developed an “Academic Integrity Rating System” for educational institutions to assess the state of their academic integrity policies and processes. In addition to specifically assessing policies and processes, universities evaluate the presence or absence of academic integrity groups/committees, academic integrity structural resources, student organizations, education for students, education for staff, curriculum information, communication to the general public, process evaluation, and data collection (ICAI n.d.).

This chapter extends international suggestions for good practice by analyzing the practical implementation of academic integrity policy from the unique perspective of five Australian universities identified by the AISP as having exemplary policies. The rationale was that universities with clearly established and articulated policy adhering to recommendations in the literature were more likely (although not guaranteed) to identify examples of good practice.

Background

A 2-day Roundtable was held on 28 February and 1 March 2013 for the EAIP project team and reference group. A senior academic representative from each of the five universities identified by the AISP as having an exemplary academic integrity policy shared the practical implementation details of their policy in their specific contexts. The presentations were videotaped and professionally transcribed. The conceptual framework developed for this chapter is based on thematic analysis of the five de-identified presentation transcripts. Thematic coding of each transcript was independently completed by the two authors, beginning with preliminary generation of initial themes. While informed by the literature and the authors’ own experience, the aim was to allow the themes to emerge from the data in grounded theory style, rather than imposing a preconceived set of ideas on the transcripts. The initial themes were then cross-checked and further refined in an iterative and extended collaborative process between the authors. Subthemes and minor categories were often merged before the final themes were agreed upon.

Findings

The key themes that emerged from the data include: culture of academic integrity, academic integrity champions, academic integrity education for all, student engagement, robust decision-making systems, record keeping for evaluation, and regular review of policy and process.

Culture of Academic Integrity

Data from all five institutions at the EAIP Roundtable were coded under this theme. All five representatives prefaced their presentations and reiterated the importance of an institutional commitment to a culture of integrity as both an aspiration and as a tangible practice. The following excerpt discusses the interconnection between institutional culture and policy/practice:

… a strong policy is of course an essential part of creating a culture of academic integrity, but I’m not so sure what comes first, whether the culture generates the strong policy or the strong policy generates the culture, but nevertheless it’s absolutely essential. But it’s not enough; it’s not enough to create that culture. You need to have the supporting processes, particularly for staff in order to have a truly effective alignment of policy and practice – both to establish and to maintain a rigorous culture of academic integrity. (University B)

Many presenters directly or indirectly referred to the Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity from the International Center for Academic Integrity – honesty, trust, respect, fairness, and responsibility (ICAI 1999) – as in the following excerpts:

We take a values-based approach to academic integrity. (University C)

…the language that introduces both staff and students to this concept is positive rather than negative in that it focuses on the attitudes and behaviours that we want to encourage through scholarship rather than the attitudes and behaviours to be avoided, that is, here’s how we would like you to practice, rather than ‘don’t do this’. (University C)

Data from every institutional presentation was coded under the theme of “multiple stakeholders,” indicating that all relevant stakeholders (at every level of the institution) were considered to be responsible for fostering a culture of integrity. One particular university articulated this aspect in relation to reporting potential breaches of academic integrity:

The…institutional framework also very clearly states that everybody is responsible for academic integrity at [our university] and we allow students, anybody to report [breaches of] academic integrity. (University E)

Academic Integrity Champions

Data from all five institutions were coded under this theme. “Academic integrity champions” were not specifically attributed this title by the presenters, but were identified during the coding process, based on the role assumed by certain individuals, groups, or stakeholders to initiate or lead change. “Champions” could come from organizations outside the academy such as the media, government funding bodies (e.g., the OLT), or regulatory bodies (such as the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency). Academic integrity champions could also be found in university management (e.g., academic board, deputy vice-chancellors, deans teaching and learning, heads of school, academic services, student council); among academic staff including professors, program directors, course coordinators, academic developers, librarians, learning advisors, and lecturers; administrative staff (such as admission officers, program advisors, and academic integrity administrative support officers); and students at undergraduate, postgraduate, and research levels.

In some cases, individuals took a unique leadership role, as in the following example:

… one of the people from [my university] …was really the driving force behind our policy development, so returning from that conference in 2003, [name] took it upon herself to develop a [name of university] policy on academic conduct. (University B)

However, it should be noted that participants at the Roundtable also indicated that an individual (alone) providing leadership was not a sustainable approach. Some participants observed that implementation of the policy a few years on and with the leader either gone or in another role had resulted in a slide to the status quo. It was agreed that dedicated positions/roles written into policy were a more effective strategy in the long term.

Academic Integrity Education (for All)

Data from all five institutions were coded under this theme, with much discussion centered on practical and timely education including ethical scholarship and academic literacies for students at all levels, as well as staff. Participants at the Roundtable emphasized the importance of recognizing the diversity of institutions, disciplines, staff, and students when designing appropriate academic integrity education as well as the role of curriculum and good assessment design more broadly. The following excerpts are indicative of all five universities’ approaches:

Our framework is very much focused on an educative response and if you actually look at the framework you will see it says what do we do for students from an English as second language background, what do we do for all sorts of… students. (University E)

…academic integrity as our policy, started moving in the direction of educative and what are the roles and responsibilities of students, staff, academics, professional [staff] and what are we going to do about it to ensure that people don’t get into that statute space [of misconduct]. (University D)

It was clear from the presentations at the Roundtable that universities with exemplary policy consider the “academic integrity education” needs of staff as well as students. Data from all five institutions were coded under the theme “professional development for staff,” as in the following excerpts:

…so it’s about educating staff as well, and of course we have got as much staff support as we can try and do but of course you have to try and get staff excited and engaged with us as well and we have got good practice guides around that. (University E)

The section for staff links to a fairly extensive policy page and contains a downloadable version of the policy itself and also some stuff about teaching practices that support AI. (University C)

While not a specific focus of the Roundtable, both presenters and participants emphasized the crucial role of assessment design and appropriate teaching practices to ensure academic integrity.

Student Engagement

Presenters recognized the importance of encouraging students to be partners rather than passive recipients in academic integrity education (as well as enforcement of policy), and data from all five institutions were coded under “student engagement.” The key suggestions for good practice from this category included the following:

  1. 1.

    The policy should state that everyone (including staff and students) is responsible for academic integrity.

  2. 2.

    There needs to be a student declaration of commitment to academic integrity on all assessments.

  3. 3.

    There should be an academic integrity module for all students. (There was extensive discussion at the Roundtable about whether this module should be compulsory or not, with opinion divided about the advantages of either approach. Concerns were raised that it was not conducive to building a culture of integrity if students were compelled to complete such a module, particularly if completion by staff was optional.)

  4. 4.

    Student learning should be supported with engaging online resources.

  5. 5.

    Students should be encouraged to mentor other students, both as a preventative measure and in the case of breaches.

  6. 6.

    Assessment tasks such as posters, essays, and videos on integrity may be more engaging (than the mere provision of information).

  7. 7.

    Students should be encouraged to contribute to policy development by participating in focus groups and/or relevant committees.

  8. 8.

    Students should be encouraged to be academic integrity champions, e.g., through work in student-run organizations and as contributors to breach decision-making.

One university gave students the opportunity to mentor other students via online resources:

Part of our student centeredness is our ‘student supporting student learning’ and there is a tab [on the university website] which [provides] our own little snippets there from one minute to about three minutes, and they are usually student voices explaining some activity, some learning activity, whether it’s ‘why reference’, or ‘where do you find databases’ or… ‘how do you approach a lecturer’, ‘what’s a good question to ask’ or… ‘how to frame a question so that a lecturer will give you a meaningful answer’. (University A)

Robust Decision-Making Systems

While the importance of an educative approach to academic integrity was agreed by all presenters, similar agreement was reached on the importance of appropriate and consistent responses to breaches of academic integrity, often referred to as “misconduct.” All five institutions discussed “academic misconduct,” with two universities noting (not without some dismay) a “mixed approach” to academic integrity:

Also I suspect that our policy…actually leans toward being a bit mixed… in that although it foregrounds an educative approach it switches quite quickly in sections to talk about misconduct. And so…[the policy states that] ‘the course outline will include information about academic integrity, and where appropriate will give examples of what will constitute academic misconduct’. So you expect you’re going to get examples for what constitutes good academic integrity in a course and instead it switches straight to misconduct. So it…does that throughout the policy and that’s a bit of a gap in terms of education that I think we would like to address. (University C)

The universities represented at the Roundtable provided examples of how specific detail about breaches and breach outcomes was included in their policies and enacted in practice. All five institutions provided specifics of their policy instruments, with extensive information provided about procedures for determining outcomes for academic integrity breaches, as in the following example:

I think the detail is extraordinarily good in this policy. It really talks in detail about what you would do in certain circumstances in terms of how the student, what the outcomes would be for the students and so forth…Not only is it detailed but its nuanced in the sense that it takes into account the students’ experience, the number of instances beforehand, the mitigating circumstances such as, for instance, if English is a second language for them, if they have been unwell, if there have been personal issues. There are a number of things like that that it takes into account. It’s not just one size fits all by any means and the processes are really quite detailed in terms of what the responsibilities are for each person and how it should be managed. (University B)

All five institutions offered detail about their “tools for decision-making,” with presenters agreeing on the importance of providing academic integrity breach decision-makers and other stakeholders with a simple flowchart that details specific roles and tasks:

We…have a flow chart that [details]…the roles…whether you are a tutor or a dean or something in between…what you do, who you pass the information on to, what documents you need to actually record the situation and so forth. So it’s crystal clear there are links off to the relevant documents. The documents are very simple; they are proformas that you fill out with basic information and you pass it on. (University B)

Academic Integrity Officers “use [the flowchart] as a guide to every inquiry process and it’s really clear how to proceed at each step and who is responsible at each step.” (University C)

The key recommendations from the category “tools for decision-making” were that universities need to provide:

  1. 1.

    Clear, easy to follow guidance on the breach process, from the suspicion of an academic integrity breach through to who makes a determination about the outcome;

  2. 2.

    Criteria to differentiate minor from major academic integrity breaches and associated outcomes;

  3. 3.

    Links to appropriate documents to aid decision-making;

  4. 4.

    Guidance on how and when to access academic integrity breach data;

  5. 5.

    Standard document templates for every step of the academic integrity breach process (e.g., pro forma letters to students, standard breach data entry); and

  6. 6.

    Professional development for academic integrity breach decision-makers, including adequate induction and tools for collaboration and consultation.

As a subset of the above category, data from all five institutions were coded under the theme “designated academic integrity role.” Four of the five universities recommended that there should be a decision-maker (or decision-makers, depending on the size of the department and the number of cases) located within the faculty with designated authority to determine outcomes for academic integrity breaches. This person might be referred to as an academic conduct advisor, faculty academic misconduct officer, or academic integrity officer as in the following example:

In terms of responsibility we’ve got a flow chart…in the main, responsibility in our model sits with Academic Integrity Officers, and [AIOs are] academics within every school who have a portion of their workload allocated to academic integrity, following up breaches and applying the Uni’s approach consistently and fairly. And it means that decision-making responsibilities are given to people who are actually on the ground, working in the schools. (University C)

One university used a slightly different model, with a student academic integrity coordinator working in an administrative role and making a preliminary or interim decision about whether the case constituted a minor or major breach. Major breaches were referred to trained academic decision-makers at the senior management level, and minor breaches were referred to course convenors supported by the student academic integrity management system.

Record Keeping for Evaluation

Data from all five institutions were coded in the theme “central record keeping.” The importance of thorough record keeping was a recurring refrain as in the following excerpts:

We record all the levels, so we actually even record the allegations, we record the findings, we record the appeals, so you actually have very rich data in regards to centrally in the university. (University D)

The history is kept on a confidential system and you can start to refer to that and see where the level of penalty has been previously. [This] allows you to make a fair judgment within that framework. (University E)

Analysis of the presentations indicated that “evaluation” was an important theme, particularly in relation to how breach data is maintained, analyzed, and used to address academic integrity issues, such as an overrepresentation of breaches in particular courses or cohorts.

Regular Review of Policy and Process

It was clear from the Roundtable presentations that having an exemplary policy is merely the first step toward best practice in managing academic integrity. Policy requires constant revision based on an institutional commitment to academic integrity and feedback from breach data, academic integrity breach decision-makers, appeals committees, senior managers, teaching staff, students, and policy-makers in other functional areas. The following excerpt in relation to revising a problematic aspect of policy is indicative of presenters’ approaches:

The section about what to do in that instance was a bit unclear and so at the end of the year when we renewed our policy and revised it as we do at the end of every year, this section was clarified and strengthened so now we fixed that issue. So we have this kind of perpetual feedback loop with our policy that allows us to kind of keep check every year on whether it’s actually accessible to staff and useable and clear. (University C)

Discussion

This chapter proposes a conceptual framework (this framework is available on the Exemplary Academic Integrity Project website [www.unisa.edu.au/EAIP] and has also been disseminated in the final report to the OLT www.olt.gov.au) for implementing exemplary academic integrity policy based on the analysis of the Roundtable data and which consolidates and extends the outcomes of the AISP (Bretag et al. 2011a, b, 2013), previous research, and the literature. At the center of the framework is a commitment to a culture of academic integrity, with each of the components identified from the data contributing to the development of this culture. Figure 1 represents the conceptual framework which takes as its starting point (on the left) the five core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy (Bretag et al. 2011b) and extends to a set of interrelated procedural components.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Framework for enacting exemplary academic integrity policy

Full size image

The framework will be discussed in detail below.

Starting Point: Five Core Elements of Exemplary Academic Integrity Policy

Based on an analysis of online academic integrity policy at 39 public universities in Australia, Bretag et al. (2011b) identified five core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy as follows:

  • Access: The policy is easy to locate, easy to read, well written, clear and concise. The policy uses comprehensible language, logical headings, provides links to relevant resources and the entire policy is downloadable as in an easy to print and read document.

  • Approach: Academic integrity is viewed as an educative process and appears in the introductory material to provide a context for the policy. There is a clear statement of purpose and values with a genuine and coherent institutional commitment to academic integrity through all aspects of the policy.

  • Responsibility: The policy has a clear outline of responsibilities for all relevant stakeholders, including university management, academic and professional staff, and students.

  • Support: Systems are in place to enable implementation of the academic integrity policy including procedures, resources, modules, training, seminars, and professional development activities to facilitate staff and student awareness and understanding of policy.

  • Detail: Processes are detailed with a clear list of objective outcomes, and the contextual factors relevant to academic integrity breach decisions are outlined. The policy provides a detailed description of a range of academic integrity breaches and explains those breaches using easy to understand classifications or levels of severity. Extensive but not excessive detail is provided in relation to reporting, recording, confidentiality and the appeals process. (Bretag et al. 2011b. pp. 6–7)

The assessment by the AISP had been that the academic integrity policies of each of the institutions represented at the EAIP Roundtable adhered to the five core elements detailed above and so could be considered “exemplary.” In a bid to further identify potential best practices emanating from exemplary policy, representatives from the five institutions were invited to present the practical implementation details of their respective academic integrity policies.

Culture of Academic Integrity

The conceptual framework begins with the premise that higher education providers need to first devote time and resources to developing an exemplary policy. (The EAIP has developed a freely available online Academic Integrity Policy Toolkit to ensure that all higher education providers have access to resources to develop and implement an institution-specific academic integrity policy. All resources from the project are available at www.unisa.edu.au/EAIP.) This policy will provide the foundation for institutional procedures and practices which further build a culture of academic integrity. Such a philosophical and practical foundation corresponds with a key recommendation by the Higher Education Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service (UK) that higher education providers should “establish a cross-institutional group or committee, supported by senior management, involving representatives from all academic faculties or departments, university services…and student representation… with a remit for promoting academic integrity across the institution, and developing and reviewing the policy…” (HEA 2011).

According to the Australian Policy Cycle (Bridgman and Davis 2000), “consultation” is a critical part of an eight-step policy cycle which includes issue identification, policy analysis, policy instruments, consultation, coordination, decision, implementation, and evaluation (Bridgman and Davis 2000, p. 27). Policy development needs to be informed by evidence derived from “on the ground” intelligence about an organization’s operational issues and the views of those implementing the policy as well as those being managed by it. This constant and reflexive consultation facilitates the implementation and development of a culture of academic integrity and results in genuine enactment of the policy cycle. Importantly, stakeholders become “policy participants” (Freeman 2013) rather than policy recipients. The EAIP online policy toolkit aimed to support some of the steps in the policy cycle – policy instrument development, consultation, and decision-making – on the understanding that the process used to develop the policy is critical to building the culture.

The proposed framework to enact exemplary academic integrity policy – academic integrity champions, academic integrity education for staff and students, robust decision-making systems, record keeping for evaluation, and regular review of policy and process – mirrors and is therefore validated by previous recommendations from numerous writers in the field (Bertram Gallant 2008; East 2009; Carroll and Appleton 2001; HEA 2011). The framework, however, does more than simply reiterate previous work. The conceptual framework is noteworthy in four distinct areas, as detailed below.

Paradigm Shift from Misconduct to Integrity

Previous research conducted by the AISP found that understandings of academic integrity by senior managers were often framed negatively, with a tendency to focus on plagiarism and other misconduct rather than explicate the values and positive attributes of integrity (Bretag 2012). It was for this reason that one of the core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy identified by the AISP was an educative “approach” underpinned by clear purpose and values. It is the authors’ contention that when extending exemplary policy to practice, the positive aspects of integrity should also be foregrounded. For example, rather than referring to “misconduct,” or “violation,” the term “academic integrity breach” should be used. This distinction is much more than a matter of semantics. Poststructuralist theory has demonstrated that language is a place of both definition and contestation and that it is possible to use language as a means of challenging the dominant discourse (Weedon 1987). We therefore maintain that policy and breach decision-makers have a unique role to play in reshaping institutional approaches and responses to breaches of academic integrity, not least by the language they use when defining their roles and responsibilities. This is an important paradigm shift which we have seen some evidence of occurring in policy (Bretag et al. 2011a, b), but which has not necessarily translated to practice across the sector.

Academic Integrity Leadership

The project’s most recent findings indicate that efforts to manage academic integrity are often initiated and led by “academic integrity champions” – who may be individuals and groups from all organizational levels and stakeholder groups, from both within and outside the organization. Management researchers have long recognized the roles played by key individuals in promoting innovation and change. These roles include being “champions” (Schon 1963), “product champions” (Chakrabarti 1974; Markham and Aiman-Smith 2001), and “change agents” in diffusion of innovation (Rogers 1995). We share Bertram Gallant’s (2008) view that there is a need for academic integrity champions as they are integral to the enactment of academic integrity policy in a variety of roles – as activators that notice the problem and call attention to it, as management champions that provide resources, as product champions that commit to the innovation and sell the idea, and as agents of diffusion that move the innovation from idea to active implementation.

Various “academic integrity champions” need to be established at every level of university governance and day-to-day operations. Students, teachers, researchers, and staff members all have the potential to be academic integrity champions by adhering to the principles, values, and actions of academic integrity. This includes having the courage to report others who they believe have breached academic integrity policy and guidelines. Those responsible for leadership in assessment (in most Australian universities, this person is usually the dean (learning and teaching) or dean (academic)) have a unique and valuable role in encouraging course convenors to design assessment in ways that ensure the integrity of learning outcomes. In turn, course convenors can be academic integrity champions who report and manage academic breaches through clearly defined processes.

Students as Academic Integrity Partners

The framework extends the authors’ previous research (Bretag et al. 2013) that students have an important role to play in enacting academic integrity. Significant work has been achieved in the USA to include students as partners in building cultures of integrity on campus. Particularly noteworthy is the International Academic Integrity Matters Student Organization (IAIMSO), founded at the University of California, San Diego, with members Bentley University and Missouri State University. The IAIMSO was established “to invigorate student involvement in the academic integrity movement as well as provide support for those students as they attempt to create cultures of integrity” within their local educational settings (Bertram Gallant 2013, personal communication). Such an organization builds on the long tradition of honor codes in the USA, an approach which research by McCabe and colleagues has found contributes to improved academic integrity and reduced cheating on campus (McCabe et al. 2001). Honor code strategies include unsupervised exams, a pledge whereby students state that they have not cheated on an assessment item, a student majority on academic integrity breach decision-making boards, and an expectation that students will report any peers they suspect of cheating (McCabe 2005).

In the Australian context, there has been ongoing debate for nearly a decade about the potential for honor codes to be introduced to higher education (Marsden 2005); however, there has been little agreement and a lack of systematic research on this topic. It should be noted that many “student charters” in Australian universities specifically mention the importance of adhering to the highest ethical standards and completing assessment tasks in an honest and trustworthy manner, and clearly these edicts are closely linked to academic integrity policy. There is a vast difference, however, between a student charter, which few students have ever read or even been reminded of, and honor codes, which American students “pledge” to uphold at multiple points throughout their studies.

In 2012 the OLT funded the commissioned project, “Academic integrity in Australia: Understanding and changing culture and practice” (Macquarie University), which aimed to look at both the challenges and potential for honor codes to be introduced to Australian universities. That work, coupled with the findings from the doctoral research by Sonia Saddiqui on the same topic, promises to create new student partnerships in fostering academic integrity, specific to the Australian higher education sector and Australian culture more broadly (Nayak et al. 2013).

Record Keeping for Evaluation

Despite the tendency for management of student misconduct matters to be dealt with at the level of individual academic units (Lindsay 2010), central record keeping of academic integrity breach data has long been recognized as an important means of assuring consistent and fair academic integrity breach decision-making (Carroll and Appleton 2005). In the six partner universities of the Academic Integrity Standards Project (2010–2012), records were maintained centrally but in such diverse forms that the breach data could not be meaningfully compared (Wallace and Green 2012). This lack of comparability, coupled with institutions’ reluctance to share data because of concerns about “reputational risk” (Marsden et al. 2005), makes it difficult to identify best practice in recording academic integrity breach data.

Universities tend to use breach data for the purpose of informing responses to student breaches (e.g., to make the case for a more severe penalty in the case of recidivist behavior as demonstrated by multiple breaches). The findings from the EAIP Roundtable reinforced the importance of central record keeping for such purposes but broadened the discussion to the potential role of academic integrity breach data for evaluation and improvement of educational practice. Participants at the Roundtable were interested to know how evaluation of breach data could be used to impact the culture of integrity at their respective institutions. For example, breach data may inform which courses or programs/faculties need additional academic integrity resources; it may identify particular cohorts of students who require support; the data has the potential to show critical points in study periods when students are most at risk of breaching academic integrity; and it could also identify gaps in professional development for staff. Wallace and Green (2012) agree that academic integrity breach data has the potential to assist universities “to make well-informed judgments about the effectiveness of their activities.”

Conclusion

Consolidating recent research on academic integrity in Australian higher education (Bretag et al., 2011a, b, 2013) and echoing recommendations from the international literature (HEA 2011; ICAI n.d.), this chapter has proposed a conceptual framework for implementing exemplary academic integrity policy. The framework makes a distinct contribution in four areas. First, there is a philosophical and linguistic shift, so that the starting point for all discussions is not misconduct but integrity. Second, the chapter has stressed the need for academic integrity champions to instigate and lead academic integrity initiatives. Third, the importance of including students as partners in developing cultures of academic integrity has been highlighted, although further research is needed to explore the potential of honor codes to assist in this process. Fourth, the framework recommends that an essential role of centrally maintained breach data is to inform and improve educational practice. The proposed framework is not meant to be prescriptive or all-inclusive, but aims to extend the already well-developed dialogue on to how to align academic integrity policy and practice in the Australian context.