Engaging with Academic Integrity and Avoiding Academic Misconduct

Engaging in academic integrity means taking steps to avoid academic misconduct. Academic misconduct refers to certain actions undertaken to gain an unfair educational advantage, which serve to undermine academic integrity.  Academic misconduct occurs for a variety of different reasons. One reason is that students can lack awareness about which types of behaviours to avoid or lack knowledge about the consequences for such behaviours. This could lead to engaging in academic misconduct unintentionally. Yet, a lack of awareness about academic integrity expectations does not mean students are exempt from the consequences of their actions. As such, it is important that students understand York’s academic integrity expectations.

Did you know? At York, expectations for academic integrity can differ from course to course and across disciplines, especially when it comes to the use of different learning tools and technologies. 

The Being Responsible for Academic integrity section provides guidance on seeking clarification when you are unsure about expectations in a particular course or for a particular assessment.   

Causes of academic misconduct:

• Lacking awareness of academic integrity expectations  
• Struggling with the demands of student life 
• Feeling anxious about academic performance (whether overly focused on achieving high grades or fear of failing) 
• Feeling an obligation to help one’s friends 
• Possessing poor academic skills (e.g., test-taking, time management, note-taking skills, among others) 
• Rationalizing the behaviour (e.g., telling yourself that it is acceptable because the assignment is not very important, or that no one will get hurt by your actions, or that other students are engaging in academic misconduct)