Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a shared value and a shared responsibility on our campus. UBC Okanagan is committed to supporting academic integrity by creating opportunities for students, faculty and staff to engage in education and awareness activities, and supporting an approach to academic misconduct that is fair and effective. We encourage you to explore our progress toward the development of a campus-wide culture of integrity. 

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

Support for academic integrity at UBC Okanagan is coordinated through the Academic Operations and Services Portfolio in the Office of the Provost and Vice President, Academic. Campus priorities are informed by Faculties and operationalized by an implementation team that contains representation from the Provost Office, the UBC Okanagan Library, the Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) program, the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), and the Faculty Advisor on Academic Integrity.  

FACULTY ADVISOR ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY 

Dr. Anita Chaudhuriwas appointed to the role of Faculty Advisor on Academic Integrity at UBC Okanagan in September 2022.  

The Faculty Advisor supports academic integrity initiatives across campus by participating in the Academic Integrity Implementation Group, developing and delivering workshops and panel sessions, advising on the development of resources, and facilitating conversations across campus on academic integrity issues involving multiple stakeholders.  

Academic integrity website

UBC’s academic integrity website provides a comprehensive resource with information about UBC’s educative approach to academic integrity, as well as resources for faculty and students on academic integrity and the academic misconduct process.  

VISIT ACADEMICINTEGRITY.UBC.CA

Strategic direction and PROGRESS

Teaching and learning with honesty and integrity requires ongoing engagement with all members of our campus community. In 2021, an Academic Integrity Working Group was struck by the Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic.

This group identified three key campus academic integrity recommendations and, for each, related actions for consideration and implementation. This work has continued to be supported through ongoing faculty, staff and student consultation as well as the activity of the Academic Integrity Implementation Group.

Progress toward the recommendations and associated actions as of September 2023 are summarized below using a progress bar scorecard. More detail is provided under each of the action items.

Progress Key

Complete
Making progress
Underway
Initiated
Not started/on hold

Recommendation: Organizational Strategy and Data Collection

Evaluate and update relevant academic integrity regulation(s) and processes and develop and implement campus-wide initiatives to support them.

Overall Progress:

Actions:

  • Create permanent administrative positions in academic integrity building towards a UBC office of academic integrity so that this work is a significant part, if not the whole, of their portfolio.

Progress Update: 

    • Faculty advisor on academic integrity appointed yearly. 
    • Academic Integrity Facilitator position in Student Learning Hub (1FTE).
    • Dedicated portion of project management role within Academic Operations and Services portfolio.  

 

  • Create and support, as relevant, an Academic Integrity Advisory Committee, to continue to inform and direct a long-term strategy on academic integrity and complete the initiatives hereby listed.

Progress Update:  

    • Academic Integrity Advisory Committee active from 2021-2023.  
    • Current approach to broaden participation in academic integrity through sessions, workshops, professional development and outreach through Faculty Advisor role. 

 

  • Update the Academic Honesty and Standards regulation in the academic calendar to ensure student and faculty expectations are clear, as well as the misconduct processes.

Progress Update:  

 

  • Develop a plan to emphasize the academic integrity regulations among students, upon registration/during orientation to remind them of their responsibility to act and learn with integrity. Such a plan should ensure students are well-informed and actively accept this responsibility (beyond the current practice of sharing the Student Declaration and Responsibilities statement from the academic calendar).

Progress Update:  

    • Orientation to academic integrity included as a module in UBC 101. 
    • AIM modules promoted during welcome weeks and available for instructors to include in Canvas courses. 
    • Presentations on academic integrity integrated in Jumpstart. 
    • Participation in Academic Integrity Week through engagement events and outreach. 

 

  • Work with the Advisory Committee to expand the scope of the already well-established Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) program to tackle issues of misconduct and cheating beyond plagiarism. For e.g., contract cheating.

Progress Update:  

    • Three modules are now available:  
      • Unauthorized Collaboration and Cheating 
      • Writing and Plagiarism 
      • Academic Integrity in the Visual Arts 
    • Planning for additional module development underway. 

 

  • Define what constitutes academic misconduct and violations of academic integrity. Perform a series of jurisdictional scans to see how other institutions handle academic misconduct cases and document best practices. This review should explore restorative justice and its role in an academic context.

Progress Update:  

 

  • Implement/integrate a student code of behaviour or pledge in the regulation to steer a culture of academic integrity, where aspirational values are well understood and shared among all community members.

Progress Update: 

    • Academic integrity statement approved and made available on UBC’s academic integrity Website 
    • Expectations of academic integrity included in revised regulation.
    • Resources for developing an integrity pledge developed and shared through the Centre for Teaching and Learning. 

 

  • Support associate deans/instructors in processing academic misconduct cases to achieve consistency across units.

Progress Update: 

    • Support continues through resources made available on UBC’s Academic Integrity Website.
    • Consultation opportunities with AIM program facilitator and Provost Office.
    • Workshops and professional development initiatives, and discussion of emerging issues through the Student Academic Success Committee.  

 

  • Collect relevant data from students, staff, and faculty members, on an ongoing basis, to support evidence-based decisions, processes, and initiatives.

Progress Update:  

    • Annual reporting process established.  
    • Deployment of the McCabe-ICAI Academic Integrity Survey across campuses with further consideration of data underway due to some anomalies in data received.  
    • Inclusion of Academic integrity questions on Teaching Practices Survey – Results October 2023.  

 

  • Engage with other post-secondary institutions in BC to advocate for legislation in the province and Canada against contract cheating websites and companies.

Progress Update:  

    • Advocating for legislation currently on hold. 

Recommendation: Training and Education

Create, implement, support, and evaluate a variety of strategies to train and educate students, faculty, and administrators with the goal of strengthening our culture of academic integrity across UBC.

Overall Progress:

Actions:

  • Develop and deploy an ongoing UBC education campaign around academic integrity to highlight this as a core value of the university. Such a campaign should target all community members including students, staff, and faculty members.

Progress Update:  

    • Awareness campaign established summer of 2021 with first Academic Integrity Week in October 2022. Campus awareness includes Student Learning Hub outreach and programming; in-class resources for faculty through Take 5; UBC’s Academic Integrity Digest (quarterly newsletter); and workshops and sessions in collaboration with the CTL.  
    • Developed and deployed entirely new academic integrity modules for UBC 101 (UBC Okanagan’s summer bridging program) in collaboration with the UBC Okanagan’s Learning and Curriculum Support Librarian. This was made available to new-to-UBCO students in August 2022. 

 

  • Uncover and dismantle myths around academic misconduct and academic integrity. Some myths to investigate include contract cheating, demographics of who engages in academic misconduct, and who is responsible for informing and maintaining academic integrity in higher education.

Progress Update: 

    • The position of Faculty Advisor on Academic Integrity was established in 2022 to support discussion and outreach. Generative AI technology has impacted work in this area and focus has been dedicated to an awareness and education around this technology.   
    • New AIM module developed “Unauthorized Collaboration and Cheating.”  

 

  • Offer training to faculty members whose responsibility is to investigate and escalate cases of academic misconduct.

Progress Update: 

    • Professional development training session template developed in partnership with Faculty, CTL and Provost Office. 
    • Regular participation in the New Faculty Orientation program. 
    • Workshops on Academic integrity delivered.  
    • Additional resources and training under development.  

 

  • Include modules on academic integrity as part of the training process for teaching assistants (TAs) and peer leaders. Include in this training discussion of what constitutes academic misconduct, the actions/procedures involved, and their responsibility/authority to act in such matters.

Progress Update:  

    • Content was reviewed and added to TA training for the 21/22 academic year and updated for the 22/23.  
    • Staffing challenges led to a pause in TA Training development initiatives with plans to resume assessment in the  2023/2024 academic year. 

 

Progress Update:  

    • The AIM program has been integrated into the revised disciplinary for academic misconduct process as a referral point for students working under an integrity plan as part of an integrated educational response to incidents of misconduct as per the Deans’ discretion.  

 

  • Actively engage with students (graduate and undergraduate) around issues related to academic integrity more generally to inform education campaigns, processes, and approaches. Some ideas could include:

Progress Update: 

    • Student engagement efforts have included poster campaigns, “Thank you for your Integri-tea events during AI week”, tabling with information about AI, chatGPTrivia during Exam Jam, academic integrity-themed Valentine’s cards, social media campaigns, and video resources on AI at UBC.  

 

  • Build and maintain a cross-campus website on academic integrity to inform the campus community of resources, processes, policies, and engagement opportunities. This website must be both user-friendly and accessible.

Progress Update: 

 

  • Coordinate an ongoing community of practice to provide members of the campus community with the opportunity to learn informally, share, discuss, and challenge academic integrity issues.

Progress Update: 

    • Initiatives in this area include events/workshops in collaboration with CTL 

 

  • Actively engage with students who have academic misconduct cases, to gain feedback about the process and insights as to ways to improve it and better educate students. Considerations for this include privacy and confidentiality, but there are effective means to facilitate this and allow for information sharing.

Progress Update: 

    • Not started 

 

  • Engage the campus community in celebrating academic integrity during Celebrate Learning Week and/or other relevant cross-campus events. The goal will be to seek engagement from those who do not usually engage in academic integrity discussions.

Progress Update: 

    • Several presentations throughout year and during Celebrate Learning Week.  
    • Most recently UBC hosted British Columbia Academic Integrity Day bringing together scholars and practitioners from across the province and beyond to discuss research and best practices in academic integrity.  

Recommendation: Curriculum and Technology

Build opportunities to further teach and reinforce best practices related to academic integrity
into curriculum and teaching practices.

Overall Progress:

Actions:

  • Work with instructors to encourage them to clearly define and communicate what academic integrity looks like in their discipline and classroom.

Progress Update:  

    • Developed resources to promote academic integrity in the classroom.   
    • Provided support  for considerations around the use of Generative artificial intelligence including Artificial Intelligence FAQ, syllabus language samples for generative AI.  
    • Convened discussions of academic integrity through professional development offerings, workshops, and sessions offered throughout the year in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. 

 

  • Provide guidelines and best practices for assessments that are both in-person and online in the same course.

Progress Update: 

 

  • Encourage instructors to explicitly include academic integrity discussion and resources in their courses, possibly one of the academic integrity modules adapted by the working group, in their course and to help guide students through how those resources relate to their specific course.

Progress Update: 

    • AIM modules promoted to faculty members and made available for integration into Canvas courses. 
    • TAKE 5 for Academic Integrity resources designed to foster awareness of academic integrity in UBC classrooms are actively promoted with the option for in-class presentations. 

 

  • Offer resources and support for faculty members to teach and model academic integrity in their courses.

Progress Update:

 

  • Support and educate instructors about teaching and learning technologies available at UBC that can help students learn about and practice academic integrity in their work as well as being aware of how the tools can be used to identify issues and challenges related to academic misconduct that may be occurring in the classroom.

Progress Update:

 

  • Offer support for program-level curriculum mapping to identify where academic integrity is taught and reinforced within a program through existing resources for curriculum planning and analysis (e.g., UBC Curriculum MAP).

Progress Update: 

    • Support for curriculum mapping provided through the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Effective Course Design resources including the integration of academic integrity modules within course and program design.  

Read the report: The full Academic Integrity Working Group Report (2021) is available upon request by emailing the Office of the Provost.

PRIORITIES for 2023/24

The Academic Integrity Implementation Group works in collaboration with advisory groups and campus partners to set priorities for each year. These are summarized below for 2023/24 organized under the three recommended areas of work.

Current Initiatives  

Academic Misconduct Process: 
  Data Gathering:  
  • Collect relevant data from students, staff, and faculty members, on an ongoing basis, to support evidence-based decisions, processes, and initiatives.  

Current Initiatives 

Education and Awareness: 
  • Participate during student orientation events engaging new to UBC students with academic integrity concepts in a variety of ways.  
  • Provide academic integrity presentations for faculty during the New Faculty Orientation. 
  • Continue to offer events throughout the year for the campus community that present a positive (as opposed to punitive) message around academic integrity.  
  Academic Integrity Website:  
  • Continue to update and revise content on UBC’s academic integrity website.  
  • Review website analytics to assess usage and site referrals to generate evidence-informed decisions about future site development and reorganization. 
  • Expand the network of areas that point to the website and raise awareness of the resources.
  • Provide current and timely information to the campus community through the Academic Integrity Digest.
  Academic Integrity Matters Program:  
  • Identify a process to address discipline-specific needs in expanding AIM modules and determine the resources needed to develop and support that work in an ongoing way. 
  • Gather feedback from students taking AIM as part of their academic course requirements.  
  • Continue to monitor and integrate information related to generative artificial intelligence and academic integrity into AIM modules.

Current initiatives 

Academic Integrity in Teaching and Learning: 
  • Work in collaboration with the Faculties, the CTL and the Faculty Advisor on Academic Integrity to develop and offer workshops, and support ongoing discussion and resource sharing related to academic integrity. 
 Support TA Training 
  • Assess how TAs are able to observe and teach academic integrity. 
  • Involve/receive feedback from the Faculty Advisor on Academic Integrity and the Academic Director for the CTL in the development of future TA training materials. 
 Generative AI and Academic Integrity  
  • Continue to develop guidance and resources for students and faculty regarding the use of Generative AI and its implications for academic integrity. 
  • Investigate the use of Generative AI tools in the UBC community and observe the application of such tools by students.  
  • Provide support for faculty in responding to Generative AI use in courses and assessments in the context of academic integrity. 

Policies & Processes

Academic Misconduct

The Academic Misconduct regulation can be found in the Academic Calendar.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES OF INSTRUCTORS:

    • Instructors must report all incidents of suspected academic misconduct to the Dean’s Office unless Faculty procedures stipulate otherwise.
    • Instructors are normally the first to investigate an academic misconduct incident and should give the student the opportunity to discuss the suspected academic misconduct.
    • Instructors may re-evaluate the academic merit of the student’s work at issue with consideration of the investigation results. The instructor may:
          • Require the student to re-do work or do supplementary work
          • Assign a grade of zero or a failing grade for the work
          • Assign other grades for the work as appropriate
    • The Dean’s Office may investigate the matter further which may include a referral of the incident to the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Discipline (PACSD).

Additionally, Dean’s Offices or delegated faculty members handling misconduct cases are strongly encouraged to:

    • Contact PACSD when investigating a case to identify repeat offenders.
    • Inform PACSD of decisions and include pacsd.ubco@ubc.ca when communicating with the student (e.g., sending a reprimand letter, final follow-up email).

PACSD Contacts

PACSD Related Resources