Upload Student Academic Conduct and Integrity Policy v4.0.txt

Student Academic Conduct and Integrity Policy v4.0.txt

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+     Student Academic Conduct and Integrity Policy 
+            - Higher Education
+
+
+1. Scope
+This Student Academic Conduct and Integrity Policy applies to all students enrolled in the higher education courses at Holmes Institute (Holmes) and the staff who deal with student breaches of academic integrity.
+
+2. Purpose
+The Policy outlines the principles and responsibilities for promoting, supporting and upholding student academic integrity.
+
+3.    Definitions
+3.1 Academic integrity is a commitment to act with honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect in all academic work.  
+3.2 Academic misconduct is conduct that contravenes the act of academic integrity. Academic misconduct whether intentional or not includes but is not limited to contract cheating, collusion, examination non-compliance, fraud, impersonation, plagiarism, promoting academic misconduct and self-plagiarism:
+a. Contract cheating is where a student engages a third-party to complete assignments. It occurs when someone other than the student completed an assignment and which the student then submits for assessment.
+b. Collusion is unauthorised collaboration where a student works with others on a task in which individual answers are required, unintentionally or intentionally. 
+c. Examination non-compliance is where a student has or provides unauthorised materials relating to the examination, copy other students' work, or obtains or provides information without appropriate permission.
+d. Fraud is where a student seeks unfair academic advantage through dishonest behaviour, including but not limited to providing false or altered information such as fake or falsified or fabricated or invalid citations and referencing, medical certificate, academic transcripts, emails and assessment submission evidence.
+e. Impersonation is where a student pretends to be someone else, or allows someone else to pretend to be them, for an assessment task. 
+f. Plagiarism is where a student uses another person's ideas and information without acknowledging that specific person as the source, such as through paraphrasing, direct copying, or fake or falsified or fabricated or invalid citations and referencing.
+g. Promoting academic misconduct is where a student shares information with other students about ways to breach academic integrity or facilitates a breach of academic integrity. 
+h. Self-plagiarism is where a student submits work previously submitted for assessment in any unit or course, without the permission of the Unit Coordinator. 
+4.   Policy Principles
+4.1   Holmes is committed to: 
+a. Ensuring and upholding academic integrity, as academic integrity is integral to maintaining the academic quality and the academic standing of its qualifications; 
+b. Honest, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility in all academic work and the promotion of the culture of academic integrity; and
+c. Supporting a culture and environment that promotes and fosters ethical academic conduct.
+4.2 The Academic Board is responsible for setting out key principles to guide the Holmes' approach to upholding academic integrity and monitoring the implementation of the principles. 
+4.3 Holmes will uphold academic integrity and apply an educative approach that supports students to use, generate and communicate academic information in an ethical, honest and responsible manner. 
+4.4 Holmes will ensure that:
+a. Academic integrity is supported through academic policies, course design and assessment standards;
+b. All academic staff are appropriately trained in academic integrity and are familiar with relevant policies and support available for students;
+c. All students are provided with timely opportunities to learn about academic integrity; and
+d. Opportunities for breaches of academic integrity are minimised.
+4.5 Allegations that students have breached academic integrity will be responded to in a fair, consistent, transparent and timely manner. Students will be given the opportunity of formally presenting their case and no person will suffer victimisation as a result of raising an allegation in good faith.
+4.6 Holmes' staff who are responsible for investigation and determining an alleged breach of academic integrity shall respect the privacy and confidentiality of all parties and reach conclusions based on available evidence. 
+5. Responsibilities
+5.1 Staff shall:
+   a. Demonstrate academic integrity to students;
+b. Maintain currency of knowledge and skills to identify a breach of academic integrity; 
+c. Develop students' knowledge and skills in relation to academic integrity as part of their teaching activities;
+d. Ensure assessment design and processes support academic integrity; and
+e. Be fair, consistent, transparent and timely in their dealings with students in managing academic integrity issues.
+5.2   Students shall:
+a.   Be familiar with and apply the principles of academic integrity, including by:
+i. Accessing to the resources on academic integrity provided for students during their studies for educational purposes; 
+           ii. Complying with instructions for assessment tasks;
+           iii. Submitting their own original work;
+iv. Acknowledging all ideas, designs, words or works of others, including in group assessments, in accordance with expectations of the discipline;
+v. Taking reasonable steps to prevent their own work from being copied by other students; and
+           vi.   Providing accurate and truthful documentation to the Institute
+b. Support a culture of ethical academic conduct and encourage other students to act with academic integrity.
+5.3   The Dean shall:
+a. Ensure that Holmes's requirements relating to student academic integrity are known and practiced by academic staff and these staff have the skills to enable them to support and teach students to act with academic integrity;
+b. Develop and maintain the skills of academic staff to enable them to identify breach of academic integrity; and
+c. Implement approaches in teaching, learning and assessment to enhance students' academic integrity and minimise opportunities for students to breach academic integrity and take appropriate action where potential breaches are identified.
+5.4   The Dean will supervise an Academic Integrity Unit to:
+a. Monitor, receive, investigate, hear and determine allegations of academic integrity breaches of students; and
+b. Report the outcomes in relation to allegations of academic integrity breaches to the Teaching and Learning Committee and the Academic Board. 
+6.   Penalties for Academic Misconduct
+6.1   Holmes considers academic misconduct as a serious academic offence and will take appropriate action against any student found to have participated in academic misconduct. The penalties for academic misconduct vary and are determined case by  case with due consideration to the facts of each case.
+6.2 Holmes utilises a two-tiered approach in assessing academic misconduct (Appendix 1). Five factors are considered in determining the seriousness of an act of academic misconduct:
+a. The type of misconduct;
+b. The extent of the misconduct;
+c. The experience of the student;
+d. The intent of the student; and
+e. The impact of the misconduct.
+
+
+6.3 Depending on the act of academic misconduct, the consequence may be determined by faculty members, Dean Academic, the Board of Examiners or the Academic Board.
+6.4 Students will be communicated in writing about the outcomes of the investigation of their allegation of breach of the academic integrity. 
+6.5 Where the misconduct is confirmed, students will be recorded in the Academic Misconduct Register.
+6.6 In accordance with the Complaints and Appeals Policy, students have the right to appeal the outcome of any investigation and any penalty applied under this Policy. 
+7.  Record Management and Reporting 
+7.1 Details of proven acts of academic misconduct (Tier 2) will be recorded on the centralised Academic Misconduct Register. The Register is secure and confidential and will be maintained by the Dean Academic in liaison with the Academic Integrity Unit and the Registrar. Details will also be recorded on file. 
+7.2 The Teaching and Learning Committee will report the misconduct cases and trends to the Academic Board, and the Governing Council via the Academic Board biannually, to ensure appropriate action is undertaken to address underlying causes. 
+7.3 Records of the alleged act of misconduct will be retained for a period of five years, or for the duration of student enrolment.  
+     Version Control and Accountable Officers
+It is the joint responsibility of the Implementation Officer and Responsible Officer to ensure compliance with this policy.
+
+Responsible Officer
+Procedure Manual
+  Student Charter and Conduct Policy - Higher Education
+Student Deferral, Suspension and Cancellation Policy and Procedures
+
+* Expansion and clarifications of types of academic misconduct.
+* Clarifications made to processes to be followed and relevant accountable officers.
+* Introduction of penalty rubrics - Appendix 1 - providing guidance on how academic misconduct penalties are determined.
+* Introduction of two-tiered approach.
+* Inclusion of Academic Misconduct Seriousness Matrix & Process Flowchart.
+* Procedure separated from the document and detailed in the Procedure Manual
+
 17 November 2021
 17 November 2021
+
+	
+Appendix 1: Academic Misconduct Seriousness Matrix
+An overall judgement as to whether a case is Tier 1 or Tier 2 is made based on five criteria. Tier 1 are less serious academic integrity breaches often because of inadequate study skills or a lack of familiarity with academic conventions. Tier 1 cases are dealt with educationally. Tier 2 is where students intentionally engage in academic misconduct with the intent to deceive. Penalties result from these conscious and pre-meditated forms of misconduct.
+
+Criteria
+
+Nature of the breach.
+* Inappropriate paraphrasing
+* Poor quality citation or referencing
+* Failure to follow Holmes Adapted Harvard Referencing guidelines
+* Purchasing an assignment
+* Selling, procuring or hawking examination materials  and assessment items
+* Stealing others' work
+* Copying other students' assignment work
+* Cheating in an examination
+* Use of file swapping sites
+* Failure to reference and/or cite adequately other people's writing or ideas
+* False indication of contribution to group work
+* Copying fragments of material from websites, books or other publications
+* Recycling or resubmitting parts of previous assignments
+* Completing individual assessment tasks with other students
+
+Amount or proportion of assessment item or work that is not the student's own. Extent to which the assessment process is compromised.
+* Few elements of computer source code
+* Selling, procuring or hawking a single exam paper, exam script or assignment.
+* Comprises minimal original work
+* Significant appropriation of ideas or artistic work Multiple pages or sections of text or graphics copied
+* Selling, procuring or hawking a number of exam papers, exam scripts or assignments
+
+Relates to your expectation that the student should be aware of the seriousness of their actions.
+* First trimester undergraduate student who has not previously attempted this type of assessment
+* After completion of known instruction in avoiding plagiarism
+* Where student is expected to fully understand and exhibit academic integrity
+
+Intentionality of the act
+* Solicitation occurs through cultural considerations or by accident
+* Cultural considerations/mitigating circumstances (e.g. no prior instruction or unclear instructions given intent to cheat is unlikely or doubtful)
+* Similarity is less than 75%
+* Actions contravene clear instructions 
+* Intent to cheat is probable or evident
+* Two or more students involved
+* Solicitation occurs among a group of students
+* Solicitation is addressed broadly to students in a range of course/s or program/s with/ without commercial conditions and terms.
+* Similarity is greater than 75%
+
+Impact of the act on others
+* The reputation of the Institute is impacted.
+
+
+
+