What is academic integrity?

Academic integrity is about good academic practice in research, reading and writing, but it is also about how to spot and solve problems with plagiarism and other academic breaches.

The Oxford Brookes Academic Integrity course covers the rules of plagiarism but also gives students useful advice on building confidence to avoid plagiarism in the first place. Students who have completed the course have been really positive about the benefits to them and their work.

What does this have to do with the library?

Academic Liaison Librarians and other members of the library team already have detailed knowledge of programmes and modules across the university.

They have experience in developing teaching materials and workshops on skills such as referencing, avoiding plagiarism and working with secondary sources, which was a great foundation for the new course.

Libraries staff developed a new Moodle course for students, in collaboration with academic and other professional services colleagues.

The Academic Integrity Moodle course

All Faculties at Oxford Brookes will be promoting the Academic Integrity course over the course of Semester 1. 

The course can be taken by any Oxford Brookes student on any course. In an increasingly pressured higher educational environment, there are ongoing challenges of reducing plagiarism and copyright infringement. This course shows how to recognise and resolve such challenges.

However, it is worth emphasising that rather than being a list of ‘thou shalt not’ instructions, the course introduces Academic Integrity in a holistic and positive manner.

Course overview

The Moodle course covers the following four topics:

• Understanding academic integrity
• Beginning an assignment
• Making good reading choices 
• Doing your own work

The course will help students find their academic voice and confidence. It offers an engaging, informative and interactive basic introduction to the key elements of academic integrity.

How to access the course

Read more about the course and find the course on Moodle.

It is available for students to take at any point in their studies. Staff from Learning Resources will be working with academic colleagues across all Faculties to make sure everyone has had the benefit of taking this short course

— Robert Curry, Associate Director of Learning Resources – Academic