We are pleased to highlight a few examples of how students serve as active partners in academic integrity.
Q&A with AMS Academic and University Affairs Office, 2022-2023 at UBC Vancouver: Advocating for academic integrity on campus
What is your role in supporting academic integrity?
Our office collaborated with the Academic Integrity Hub this year to curate events for Academic Integrity Week (October 17 – 21, 2022), including hosting a campaign booth on October 19th, the International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. At our booth we raised awareness of different resources for students, including the Academic Integrity Hub, UBC Ombudsperson, and the AMS Advocacy Office. We also collected student responses to the question of “What does academic integrity mean to you?” and shared these with the Academic Integrity Hub to support the development of their programs.
Alongside collaborating on events, we worked with the Hub on developing a more holistic definition of academic integrity on campus. Other initiatives we echoed support for the Hub on was their implementation of a diversionary process route for academic misconduct stages, which is currently in the pilot stage for several Faculties on campus. In December, the VP AUA participated as a panel member in the CTLT’s Winter Institute’s panel on Academic Integrity.
How is your role important?
The Office of Academic and University Affairs is the bridge between students and University administration. Through one of our annual projects, the Academic Experience Survey, we collect student responses that inform the advocacy practices of our office. This year we restructured our questions on academic integrity to capture the changes being made on campus, and the results will be shared with key stakeholders at UBC. Collecting and sharing this data supports us in tailoring our efforts around academic integrity on campus to better respond to student needs in that area.
Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) Consultant UBC Okanagan: Providing peer support for academic integrity education
Stephanie Awotwi-Pratt is a graduate student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies program (Power, Conflict, and Ideas theme) at UBC Okanagan. Stephanie joined the Student Learning Hub’s writing consultant team in 2021 and began her roles as Senior Writing Consultant and AIM Consultant in August 2022.
What is your role in supporting academic integrity?
Stephanie: My role as an Academic Integrity Matters consultant is to support and guide students so they maintain and uphold academic integrity. I also provide students with appropriate resources that they can use throughout their time at UBC and into their professional careers. I ensure that students are aware of the expectations of maintaining academic honesty at UBC, their professors and their wider community, to ensure that their efforts in their academic work are honest. I also clarify expectations of them as a student to present their own work and cite resources, ideas and work that is not their own.
Why is your role important?
Stephanie: I give students the confidence to reach out to the appropriate academic resources and support freely available on campus. I support students by helping them centre their voices and perspectives in their writing and have confidence in communicating their ideas to their audience. My role is also to collaborate with students to guide them to the best resources to use and encourage them to use resources early on and consistently throughout the term so that they are less likely to include inappropriate sources.
What’s your advice to students about academic integrity?
Stephanie: Get help sooner, seek out appropriate student resources on campus available to them and believe in themselves. Cultivating their voice, perspectives and knowledge are part of what is expected of them as a student and developing that through feedback from professors, TAs, writing consultants and subject tutors will develop them as students and future professionals.
