Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity is the assurance that student work is the genuine product of the student being assessed. Academic Integrity is of the utmost importance for ensuring that results allow valid inferences to be made about student achievement. 

Assessment tasks that utilise 'test conditions' that prevent communication between students is a common approach for some course areas. The test conditions should be clearly communicated to students to remove the possibility of ambiguity or confusion. Maintaining test security and ensuring tasks are not re-used without modification will further assist in academic integrity. 

Teachers can build academic integrity into  assessments through: 

• designing a several types of tasks

• updating tasks regularly

• using a recent or local context rather than a general context

• incorporating classroom experiences that outside agents would not be privy to

• including personal reflection/opinion 

• using interdependent tasks and drafting or evidence of planning, check points and clear tracking

(Charles Sturt University, 2020, University of Waterloo, n.d., University of Tasmania, 2018)

The issues around the potentials, challenges and risks of AI generated materials and summative assessment are constantly changing and developing. Technological solutions are in always in an arms race with AI-based cheating so much be constantly reviewed. Non-technological solutions may be more enduring but limit the task types available for reliable assessment tasks.  It is clear that maintaining academic integrity has become much more labour intensive and complex than several years ago. Care must be taken that tasks do not become so complex that tasks become opaque, inequitable and confusing.

Below is a copy of the BSSS Student Guide to Academic Integrity which we encourage you to use this with your students in class and share this with your students. The link to the handbook can also be found here on the BSSS website. 

Teacher Academic Integrity Guide

Student Academic Integrity Guide 

Here are the BSSS we are very lucky to have Jenny Hanson who is probably the most prolific writer on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Senior Secondary System within Australia.  Jenny has written the following special interest papers with regard to the use of Generative AI which impact issues regarding Academic Integrity. 

Special Interest Paper January 2023: The Emergence of AI in ACT Senior Secondary Education

Special Interest Paper March 2023: Academic Integrity in ACT Senior Secondary Education in Early Phase Generative AI

Special Interest Paper April 2023: Parents, Carers, and Community - Generative AI in ACT Senior Secondary Education

Special Interest Paper June 2023: AI Detection, Plagiarism, and preparing for a school appeal

Considering Generative AI

The advent of sophisticated generative AI that is freely available may allow students to submit work that is not their own with very little chance of detection. This may prevent accurate measurement of student capacity. You should assume that if students take a task home that they will have used AI to assist them. You should also assume you cannot distinguish AI generated work from student work.  Take care that in-class tasks are not so predictable that they also vulnerable to AI-based cheating. 

Currently, attempts to develop detection software have not been successful.  Any detection software results can only be suggestive, conversations with students and procedural fair processes would have to follow. Make it clear to students what evidence you will require to forestall suspicions of a lack of academic integrity, such as research notes and multiple drafts. Or outline allowable AI uses and the limits allowed. Teach students to keep their research notes and submit a record of prompts used so that they  can provide evidence of process and composition if required. 

Consequently you need to consider what aspect of the discipline are you trying to assess and how generative AI might impact on it. Then you can try to design tasks that focus on what you want to know about student performance while limiting interference from AI. Or make AI integral in some tasks to build new disciplinary skills. 

Explicitly define the appropriate use of AI in a task  and accommodate this in your rubric, e.g. AI use might mean the expectation of perfect spelling as the minimum standard. 

Consider increasing the weighting of  supervised in-class tasks without digital tools or with lock down browsers- in this context a prepared oral presentation is not an in-class task.  

If you are interested in exploring the implications of generative AI further, you could undertake this BSSS Professional Learning online workshop- Introduction to to AI in the ACT Senior Secondary System.

Evaluating Academic Integrity of an Assessment Instrument: 

Is it easy for students to access someone else’s work and claim it as their own? How can I prevent this?

1.       Outstanding Academic Integrity

o   Students are required to engage in genuine deep learning at a level of challenge appropriate to the student and tasks make provision for sense making or knowledge construction. Assessment is designed to ensure authenticity from students and requires individualised responses.

o   Students are well educated as to what constitutes academic integrity as evident in a highly considered Program of Learning. Expectations in regard to plagiarism, assistance by others and referencing are made clear to students. Students declare that work is their own.

o   Assessment tasks are not reused. 

2.       High Academic Integrity

o   Academic integrity is discussed with students with expectations with respect to academic integrity and the consequences of cheating or plagiarising made clear.

o   Students are informed as to what constitutes academic integrity as evident in a considered Program of Learning.

o   Assessment is designed to encourage original thinking from students and require individualised responses that will be different. Expectations in regard to plagiarism, assistance by others and referencing are conveyed to students. Students declare that work is their own.

o   Assessment tasks are not wholly reused with important aspects changed. 

3.       Satisfactory Academic Integrity

o   Academic integrity is discussed with students in a general sense as evident in an appropriate Program of Learning.

o   Assessment is designed so that a majority of the assessment encourages original thinking from students or requires individualised responses. Expectations in regard to plagiarism, assistance by others and referencing are referred to in the assessment task description. A statement is included in the task description stating that submitted work is declared as own work.

o   Assessment tasks have some aspects changed from year to year.

4.       Minimal Academic Integrity

o   Minimal evidence of academic integrity processes in place.

o   Assessment allows for the possibility of identical responses from students. Expectations in regard to plagiarism and referencing are inconsistent or applied inconsistently. The assessment task does not state that submitted work is declared as own work.

o   Assessment tasks are largely the same from year to year.

5.       No Academic Integrity

o   Academic integrity is not mentioned in any documentation.

o   Assessment requires identical responses from students.

o   Expectations in regard to plagiarism and referencing are not addressed. Students do not make a declaration of own work.

o   Assessment tasks are the same from year to year.

Ethical Research Principles and Guidelines

Academic integrity also encompasses students conducting honest, safe an genuine research. Students are expected to engage in their projects openly honestly and transparently. They are required to treat human participants with respect, including of their privacy, health and well-being. 

This may require reconsidering assessment task types, such as qualitative survey research, or adding risk mitigation elements to tasks involving people, such as experimental studies, portraiture, and biography. 

The BSSS Policy and Procedures empowers teachers to require and enforce ethical practices in their classes. 

More information can be found at:

Ethical Research Principles and Guidelines