Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means acting honestly and with respect when communicating or writing in an academic environment. It means students must acknowledge other people’s work when using information from research, and to always submit work that is the result of their own learning and thinking.

The best way to maintain these high standards of academic integrity is to avoid academic misconduct.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is acting dishonestly, either unintentionally or intentionally, with the aim of achieving high grades. Academic misconduct includes:

• Plagiarism: Using another person’s work as your work and failing to acknowledge the source.
• Self-plagiarism: Copying your own work and using it for a different purpose or subject.
• Collusion: Working on an individual task or assignment with other students without permission from the subject lecturer or supervisor.
• Cheating: Using unauthorised materials or sources during an academic assessment or an examination, or breaking other exam rules to gain an academic advantage. Submitting a false medical certificate, and falsely claiming wifi-connectivity issues during online assessments or take-home exams are examples of cheating.
• Contract Cheating: Asking and/or hiring other persons to do your work.

Compulsory Coursework Academic Integrity Education Modules

Every student must act with integrity. To help students learn how to act with integrity and avoid academic misconduct, students are required to complete a set of Coursework Academic Integrity Education Modules.

The Coursework Academic Integrity Education Modules are available on LearnJCU.

Let us hear from the academics and students at James Cook University about their views of academic integrity and misconduct.

Read the Student Code of Conduct here.

Learn more about JCU's academic integrity policy and Academic Misconduct Procedure