Latest updates (February 2026)

Under the Academic Integrity Policy, all suspected academic integrity breaches must be reported via the academic integrity reporting form, even if the breach is minor. The reasons are:

• The number and severity of prior breaches can influence the penalty given for subsequent breaches. If breaches are not reported, there is not an accurate picture of the student’s history.
• Being reported and absorbed into the central integrity process gives students the best chance to learn from the incident, understand expectations more clearly, and avoid future breaches.
• It is preferable to have a standardised approach across the university to ensure fairness, consistency, and transparency in the application of academic integrity principles, rather than individual staff handling breaches informally and/or inconsistently.

From Semester 2, 2025, the position on use of generative artificial intelligence in assessments (in Section 16 Allowable Assistance in the Academic Integrity Policy) is that:

• Students are not permitted to use AI in secure (supervised) assessments, for instance exams and in-person practical or creative tasks unless express permission has been granted by the unit of study coordinator.
• For open (unsupervised) assessments, students are allowed to use AI, and need to appropriately acknowledge its use – provided they do so, the use of AI does not constitute a breach of academic integrity.
• The "Use of AI" column in the assessment section of the unit outline indicates to students whether AI use is permitted. Information in this column is automatically aligned with the assessment category in the Sydney Curriculum system (AKARI).
• For more information, refer to Teaching and Learning response to Artificial Intelligence.

For latest updates on integrity trends, read the 2024 Educational Integrity Annual Report. 

• Key findings:
  • The proportion of coursework students involved in reported breaches in 2024 was 5%. 
  • While overall breach numbers are down from the previous year, the Office of Educational Integrity suspects there is under-detection and under-reporting of breaches and is working to encourage greater awareness and increased reporting/detection across campus.
  • Consistent with previous years, data shows that full time undergraduate students, especially those in their first year of study, are more susceptible to integrity breaches.
  • International students are significantly overrepresented in cases. In 2024, they accounted for 71.6% of reported breaches despite only making up 49.8% of coursework enrolments.
  • The contract cheating industry continues to aggressively target our institution - especially our international students - and the wider higher education sector, posing significant risks to students and the integrity of our degrees. The Office of Educational Integrity does not anticipate the rise of AI to reduce the prevalence of contract cheating. In fact, our intelligence-gathering work regarding the contract cheating industry suggests that some providers of contract cheating services are already harnessing AI to improve their service offerings to students. 

Questions? Book a drop-in session with the Office of Educational Integrity (OEI)

Do you need help interpreting the Academic Integrity Policy, Academic Integrity Procedures, Penalty Guidelines or reporting form? The Office of Educational Integrity offers one-on-one support sessions. Register to attend one of these fifteen-minute sessions  via Microsoft Bookings. 

What is Academic Integrity?

'Academic integrity is a commitment to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, responsibility, fairness, respect... plus the courage to act on them even in the face of adversity. Without them, everything that we do in our capacities as teachers, learners, and researchers loses value and becomes suspect.' (The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity, International Centre for Academic Integrity, Third Edition).

Acting with academic integrity means students must follow ethical principles in all their dealings at university. It means entering into relationships based on mutual respect and trust, and always acting with honesty and fairness.

This includes:

• students doing their own work, even if they find the work challenging;
• correctly acknowledging where other sources, people or tools have contributed to their work in some way;
• following all rules set for assignments and exams;
• never seeking to gain an unfair advantage over others;
• behaving honestly and appropriately in group work; and
• ultimately, doing the "right thing" at University, even when things seem difficult and taking a shortcut to academic success seems easier.

Educational Integrity Roles and Responsibilities across the University 

We all have a role to play in preserving the academic excellence and integrity of our teaching and research programs.

Teachers must be familiar with their integrity responsibilities and those of their students. Below is a summary of these, but you should also familiarise yourself with the relevant policies (See Related Policies in the right-side column).