FAQs

Students need to know and understand their responsibilities under policy AA48: Academic Integrity. The Student Retention and Academic Success department, in partnership with the Academic Integrity Office, has published a guided online activity called Integrity in Action, which you can add to your Brightspace course in order to help students understand their responsibilities.

Watch the Adding Integrity in Action to a Brightspace course video or read the instructions below to find out how to add the activity to a Brightspace course.

To add the Integrity in Action digital activity to your Brightspace course:

1. Open the course in Brightspace, open the Content page, and navigate to the course folder where you want to add the activity.
2. Click Upload/Create and select Add Object from LOR. The LOR is the Learning Object Repository.
3. Search for “Integrity in Action.”
4. Select the result from Student Retention and Academic Success and then click Next.
5. Leave “Dynamic Link to Newest Version” selected. This ensures that if the activity is updated in the future, you will always have the latest version. Click Next.
6. Don’t select the option to view the content in another tab. Click Create Topic.
7. The activity will now appear in the folder. Click on the activity name in the content folder to view the activity.

To see whether your students have completed the activity, you can check the report.

1. Click on Table of Contents in the left-hand menu of the Content page.
2. Click on Related Tools and then select View Reports from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Legacy SCORM Reports. In the row for the Integrity in Action activity, you will be able to see how many students have completed the activity.
4. Click on the icon for Summary for Integrity in Action. You will see the details of which students have started or completed the activity.

Supplementary Quiz for your Grade Book

If you would like to add an assessment that connects with your grade book in Brightspace, you can add the supplementary H5P quiz.

To add the H5P quiz:

1. Open the course folder into which you want to add the quiz.
2. Click Existing Activities and select H5P Quicklink from the drop-down menu.
3. In the drop-down menu beside “Manage Content,” select All Content to view the available activities.
4. Search for “Types of Academic Misconduct Activity.”
5. Click the three dots beside the name of the activity and click Clone. This will create a copy of the activity.
6. Remove “Clone of” from the title and click Clone and Insert above the activity. The activity will now appear in your Brightspace course.
7. Open the activity, scroll down, and add a grade item in the Activity Details to add the activity to your grade book.

Note: As this activity “clones” the original activity, you will not automatically see any updates. While updates/changes will be infrequent, you may want to create a new clone of the original each term to ensure you always have the most up-to-date version.

Not immediately. Once you have submitted your academic integrity incident report, an Academic Administrator will take the case and will investigate and manage the incident. Dependant on the outcome, you may need to support the final decision by applying the sanction. Example: assigning a grade of zero or allowing a student to resubmit and then grade the resubmission.

Yes, to properly track how many learning opportunities a student is being provided, it is essential that all incidents be recorded. Please specify in the space for faculty recommendations that you have provided the student with a learning opportunity. If the Academic Integrity Office notices that a student has already been provided with a learning opportunity, they will contact you to notify you about this information and discuss the appropriate sanctions needed for the incident.

Give the student three business days to respond to your email regarding the alleged academic misconduct.

Not necessarily. It is important that you understand what a similarity report is saying. Just because a student has a high percentage of similarity, it doesn’t mean they have plagiarized. Training on how to interpret Turnitin results can be found here:

• Training Video #1  
• Training Video #2 
• Training Video #3 

The policy requires that faculty communicate with the student regarding the alleged incident prior to submitting the academic incident report. Providing students with the opportunity to explain or clarify the situation is important, but also provides faculty with the opportunity to assess whether an incident has truly occurred.

If you have communicated with the student at the time of the incident, then your first step would be to immediately complete and submit the academic incident form with the pertinent details.

If you are concerned with the outcome of the academic incident you filed, you are welcome to talk with the Academic Integrity Administrator in charge of your incident to discuss further.

Several things go into determining the level of sanction, remembering that each student is a unique case with unique issues. Some of the factors used to determine the level of sanction are students’ academic record (have they had a formal learning opportunity already, do they have previous offences on record?), the College’s policy and procedures pertaining to the incident, faculty recommendation, discussion with the student to understand the situation better, review of the documentation and evidence submitted by faculty, discussion with Program Chair.

Your file is reviewed by an Academic Integrity Administrator, and they reach out to the student to setup a meeting to discuss the incident. The administrator will contact faculty if they need clarification/more information about the incident, or if they feel the faculty should attend the meeting with the student. Faculty will be communicated with on the final outcome of the academic decision.

If a student does not respond within three business days, then submit the academic incident report and note that you did not hear back from the student.

No, if you address the issue at the time of the incident, you do not need to notify the student formally. You can also submit the academic incident report immediately and do not have to wait to submit it.

Students will receive an email from the Academic Administrator assigned to their case and will communicate with that person until their case is closed.

As soon as possible. A general rule is to communicate with the student within three business days of having observed/found an issue of academic misconduct.

Academic Integrity Administrators make recommendations for the sanctions that should be applied based on the current Academic Integrity Policies, students’ academic record/history, and the severity of the incident, and at times in consultation with Program Chair.

Individual report submissions have always been a requirement of the reporting procedures. For tracking purposes, it is important that only one student be identified in a form submission. Even though students may have committed an offence together, their personal academic record requires that information be recorded separately.

Additionally, reports are generated from the information submitted in the form and are provided to the student. For privacy purposes, it is important that students only see their information. We have heard the feedback regarding simplifying the form for multiple student submissions; however, at this time, the form is not capable of performing these functions. We are working towards a simplified method of submitting reports via Brightspace in the near future.

There are several factors that go into determining a sanction, and if a faculty members recommendation is not used it is likely because the AOP Chair has found information that resulted in a need to apply a different sanction. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to the Academic Administrator.

Each situation is unique and sometimes takes longer than other incidents. Academic Administrators do their best to resolve incidents quickly, but again timelines change based on the severity of the incident, the number of persons involved, meeting times/scheduling, and more.