Academic integrity is about presenting academic work in a moral, ethical and honest way. It means using ideas, knowledge and information to develop your own insights, not presenting someone else’s work as your own. It also means acknowledging the work of others when you include it in your work.

Why is academic integrity important?

Academic work in a university depends on the practice of academic integrity as a core value. It is an important part of Swinburne’s culture for both staff and students, and essential to the thought and practice of scholarship. All work produced must acknowledge the sources of ideas presented and cite the original work which informed it.

How do I ensure my own academic integrity?

You can achieve academic integrity by honestly submitting work that is your own. Presenting work that fails to acknowledge other people’s work within yours can compromise academic integrity. This includes:

• exam misconduct
• plagiarism
• colluding with another person
• copying or submitting whole or parts of computer files as if they are your own (e.g. web pages)
• research misconduct
• any other activity intended to gain unfair or unjustified advantage.

How do I maintain academic integrity?

• Make sure you understand how to reference your sources.
• Don’t leave your assignments around for others to read.
• Take discs and USB sticks out of the computers in the library or the computer labs.
• When photocopying or making notes from texts, record all bibliographic information.

• See the Student Academic Misconduct Regulations
• Check how to reference your sources