About academic integrity

Find out what working to a high level of academic integrity means for you.

The University belongs to an internationally recognised community of higher education with a special responsibility to:

foster and preserve scholarly values support the search for truth and curiosity-led investigation maintain intellectual integrity encourage critical appraisal nurture these values in their students Please read the University of Auckland Student Charter.

As a student of the University of Auckland, you are a member of a distinguished academic community. We are committed to providing all the support you need to understand what working to a high level of academic integrity means for you.

There’s a lot more to academic integrity than ‘not cheating’. It’s obviously not alright to claim that something is your work when it wasn’t, but University-level work requires that you acknowledge all sources according to the referencing requirements of your subject.

It’s in everybody’s interests for you to get this right – never be afraid to ask if you’re unsure, even if it seems like it should be obvious.

All students who are new to the University of Auckland will complete an online course that introduces the fundamental concepts of academic literacy and illustrates how they apply to different types of study.

You’ll need to show that you’ve understood these ideas by passing the end-of-course online test, Academic Integrity Course.

Academic integrity is ultimately your responsibility, but the University has lots of resources to offer help and advice if you need it:

The online course will always be available for you if you need to go back and refer to it Referen©ite is the University’s academic referencing website, with tutorials and guidelines on exactly how you should acknowledge sources you use in your work Your lecturers and tutors will always be happy to answer any questions you might have Subject librarians will be able to offer advice on specific issues relating to your area of study If you submit any material for assessment that isn’t your own you are not only missing out on the opportunity to benefit from the education that you’re enrolled for, you are defrauding the University – and disrespecting your fellow students.

The University of Auckland Student Academic Conduct Statute has strict provisions on the penalties for academic misconduct. Penalties may apply even if you didn’t know that what you were doing was wrong, so it is very important that you take advantage of all the resources available to make sure you understand how to work with full academic integrity. The penalties are much stiffer if you cheat deliberately.

The University uses Turnitin to check submitted work.

Deliberate offences of academic misconduct are recorded on the central Register of Deliberate Academic Misconduct. These records are held until a year after the offending student graduates. The University recognises that this information is confidential and access to view records held in the Register is strictly limited to staff authorised to access this information.

The Register will only be consulted after it has been determined that an offence has been committed.

The main purpose of the register is to allow Academic Heads to identify students who have already been involved in academic misconduct as:

penalties for second offences will be more severe second offences which could be judged minor may be treated as major because of the prior record.