Academic Integrity at UBC
An important value within the UBC community.
Academic integrity is an integral part of the university experience, deeply connected to the values outlined in UBC’s strategic vision–excellence, integrity, respect and accountability. It is both a practice and a principle, and an essential part of being a member of the university community.
There is an overwhelming need to support those who teach and who promote academic integrity and those who are impacted by academic misconduct. There is a need to support the full academic integrity cycle and elevate the educative response to academic misconduct where appropriate. UBC is committed to strengthening its culture of academic integrity, one that is informed by the university’s commitments to equity, inclusivity and Indigenous human rights.
UBC’s culture of academic integrity aims to foster an educative approach to academic integrity, clarify expectations for teaching and upholding this value, and provide information on the process involved for faculty and for students when it is breached. Academic integrity is everyone’s responsibility. This means that faculty, students and staff all have a role to play in upholding it.
From clarifying expectations of academic integrity in the classroom to modeling honest behavior as instructors and scholars, we all have a role. UBC is dedicated to strengthening its culture of academic integrity through investment in initiatives that further support faculty and students. The Provost’s Offices on both campuses are actively engaged in this work: developing programs and tools to teach and to promote academic integrity, creating resources to support the academic misconduct process, building partnerships across campus and increasing general awareness of academic integrity at UBC.
Academic integrity working groups have been active and vital parts of this reflection, bringing together expertise and perspectives from across the university. Staff positions in academic integrity were created to lead the implementation of recommendations, develop further initiatives and identify opportunities for the coming years. The Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund project “Our Cheating Hearts” has been inspirational and paradigm-shifting: changing how we talk about cheating and exploring how to incorporate academic integrity material into the curriculum.
Additionally, the Aspire 2040 Learning Transformation Fund at UBC Okanagan is supporting “Disciplinary Approaches to Academic Integrity”, a project that seeks to develop Open Educational Resources on academic integrity including undergraduate student-focused teaching and learning materials, discipline-specific perspectives, and theoretical concepts articulated to an undergraduate audience.
A commitment to academic integrity
As an institution UBC is connected to relevant networks as a member of the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI). The university is also involved with the BC Academic Integrity Network for networking at the provincial level. In 2021, UBC hosted its first Academic Integrity Week and was active in the BC Academic Integrity Day. In 2022 we took part in the McCabe/ICAI benchmarking survey, the largest student survey on the state of academic integrity culture. Increased focus, time and dedication from stakeholders across campus and expanded central support have been critical to building this strong foundation.
Moving forward the academic integrity project seeks to provide further spaces to bring together new and different perspectives, address challenging questions, create further opportunities for student partnerships and mentorship, and to further opportunities for training in the area.
Academic integrity is a multi-stakeholder topic and a shared-value in the university community: our aim is to reflect this by creating connections across the university to understand how it can be experienced in different ways.
Commitment to working around the key pillars of education, awareness and academic misconduct support will continue to strengthen UBC’s culture of academic integrity.
