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When you or your work don’t meet our standards of honesty, care and ethical responsibility, it's called a breach of academic integrity.
If your course coordinator or an examiner thinks you may have breached academic integrity, we use the process described in our Procedures for Managing Breaches of Academic Integrity (for minor breaches) and our Student Disciplinary Regulations (for misconduct) to investigate the problem and find a resolution.
How we assess possible breaches of academic integrity
We use three criteria to decide how serious a possible breach of academic integrity is.
1. Our expectations about what you should know (your experience)
We consider how long you have been at university, and how much you should know about academic standards.
- In your first year of undergraduate study, we understand that you may still be learning academic writing and study skills. When we assess a possible breach of academic integrity, we take this into account.
- By your second or third year of study, we expect you to have developed strong academic writing skills.
- Academic integrity breaches by postgraduate and doctoral students are regarded as very serious.
2. The nature of the breach
Breaches of academic integrity are more serious when they’re clearly deliberate and deceptive. You are deliberately breaching academic integrity if you:
- take notes or a mobile phone into a test or exam
- submit research data that has been fabricated
- help other students cheat
- hand in work that has been produced in part or completely by someone else or using generative artificial intelligence (if that has not been explicitly allowed). This includes contract cheating, or getting family or friends to generate your work.
3. The extent of the breach
If you are accused of a breach of academic integrity, we consider how much of your assignment is problematic. We look at the amount of material that is:
- copied from a source, and not properly referenced
- badly paraphrased, and not properly referenced
- produced by someone else or by artificial intelligence.
There is no firm rule about how much copied or paraphrased material is unacceptable. This will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Note: Integrity updates
We’re currently updating our Student Academic Integrity Policy, the Procedures for Managing Breaches of Academic Integrity, and our Student Disciplinary Regulations. These policies will be valid until the new ones are published.
Levels of academic misconduct and the possible outcomes
At Massey, there are different levels of breaches of academic integrity.
Minor breach
This is a less serious academic integrity breach. It will usually be investigated and resolved by your course coordinator, in an informal process.
Minor breaches include:
- copying a passage of text without a reference in one of your first assignments at Massey
- poor paraphrasing in one of your first assignments at Massey.
Outcomes where minor breaches have been confirmed
If you commit a minor breach, you might:
- be asked to attend a course about good scholarly practices
- be referred to a Learning Consultant, who will help you improve your academic writing skills
- have to repeat the assessment (with or without a reduced mark)
- get a reduced mark for the assessment
- get a zero for the assessment.
A minor breach won’t affect your academic record, or be entered into the Academic Misconduct Register.
Misconduct
More serious breaches of academic integrity are regarded as misconduct.
The Academic Integrity Officer in your college or the University Proctor usually investigates allegations of misconduct and decides on an appropriate outcome if the allegation is substantiated.
Examples of misconduct
These offences would likely be considered misconduct:
- plagiarising if you’re a second or third year undergraduate student, or a postgraduate or doctoral student
- taking notes or a phone into an exam
- contract cheating
- getting someone else to sit an exam for you or to complete an assignment for you.
Outcomes where misconduct has been confirmed
If, after investigation, we believe you have committed misconduct, the outcome might be:
- referral to a Learning Consultant, who will help you improve your academic writing skills
- having to repeat the assessment (with or without a reduced mark)
- getting a reduced mark for the assessment or exam
- failing the assignment or exam
- failing the course
- a period of suspension from Massey.
The outcome will depend on how serious the breach is.
If you are found to have committed misconduct, the breach will be recorded in the Academic Misconduct Register. This means that if you commit another offence in the future, the penalty might be more serious. It also means that we may have to disclose this when it is lawfully required to do so, for example in the case of professional registration with an industry body.
Serious misconduct
The most serious breaches of academic integrity are regarded as serious misconduct.
Allegations of serious misconduct are investigated by the University Proctor.
Examples of serious misconduct
These breaches would likely be classified as serious misconduct:
- fabricating or falsifying research data
- paying someone to do an assignment for you
- paying for answers to an exam
- any breach of academic integrity if you’re a doctoral student.
Outcomes where serious misconduct has been confirmed
If, after investigation, we believe you’ve committed serious misconduct, the outcome might be:
- having to repeat the assessment, with a reduced maximum mark
- failing the assignment or exam
- failing the course
- suspension from Massey
- a period of exclusion from Massey.
If you are found to have committed serious misconduct, it will be recorded in the Academic Misconduct Register. It also means that we may have to disclose this when it is lawfully required to do so, for example in the case of professional registration with an industry body.
How we investigate possible breaches of academic integrity
If you're suspected of breaching academic integrity, the process we follow depends on how serious the possible breach is.
- If a Massey staff member thinks you have committed a minor breach, they will invite you to discuss the problem and decide on an appropriate outcome informally.
- If you're alleged to have committed a breach that is classified as misconduct, we'll begin a formal investigation.
- If you're alleged to have committed a breach that is classified as serious misconduct, the University Proctor will investigate.
Formal investigation process
You can read about the formal investigation process for misconduct and serious misconduct in detail in the Student Disciplinary Regulations.
- You will be invited to a meeting to discuss the problem. This is your chance to explain what has happened from your point of view.
- You can attend the meeting in person or online.
- You're allowed to bring a legal representative to the meeting, if you want to.
- Or, you can bring someone to support you. This could be someone from the Student Advocacy Service, the Student Counselling Service, your whānau or a friend.
- You will get a letter to let you know about the outcome of the investigation, and any outcome imposed for the breach.
- In most cases, you can appeal the decision.
Appealing after you have been found to have committed misconduct or serious misconduct
You can appeal the findings and/or outcome of misconduct and serious misconduct as long as:
- you and your course coordinator or the Academic Integrity Officer have not already agreed about the outcome of the charge; and
- you follow the rules about appeals in the Student Disciplinary Regulations.
Understand our academic integrity policy
Our academic integrity policy isn't just about breaches – we also support you to produce work of a high academic standard.
Our approach has six parts:
- Education. We have a range of services and resources dedicated to helping you understand the rules we expect you to follow. If you breach academic integrity, we try to help you learn from your mistake.
- Communication. You can read all our rules and policies about academic integrity on our website.
- Academic Integrity Officers (AIOs). Our officers give advice about academic integrity to Massey’s staff, and help deal with breaches.
- Disciplinary regulations.
- Academic misconduct register. If, after investigation, you are found to have committed academic misconduct, we’ll record the breach in our academic misconduct register.
- Detection software. Your lecturers may use Turnitin to check your work for originality, possible plagiarism, or possible use of artificial intelligence.