Building and sustaining resilient academic integrity ecosystems

Keynotes and Panels

Keynote: Academic Integrity as Enduring Foundation: Communication, Process, and Institutional Leadership in an Era of Generative AI

Contemporary discourse frequently positions generative AI as the central preoccupation of higher education. This conversation advances a different premise. Academic integrity, together with the ethical reasoning on which it depends, constitutes the enduring foundation of university education, while the technologies of any given moment remain transient. The tools that dominate present discussion will look substantially different within a year or two, yet the questions that integrity raises will persist.

Drawing on Australasian, Canadian, and broader international experience, the speakers examine two connected concerns. The first addresses how integrity is communicated and how institutions respond to misconduct, including the distinction between students who are not coping and students who are deliberately cheating, and the development of disciplinary processes that are fair, rigorous, and durable rather than punitive. The second locates the principal capacity for reform in institutional change and academic leadership, considering programme-level progression that cultivates student agency and accountability, the building of staff capability, and the affirmation of an educative institutional purpose.

A shared concern underlies both: the need for universities to remain publicly defensible as external voices question the value of degrees and seek to influence higher education for political ends.

Professor Sarah Eaton, University of Calgary

Professor Sarah Elaine Eaton is the Director of the Postplagiarism Research Lab at the University of Calgary. She researches in the areas of ethics and integrity in higher education contexts, including the ethical use of artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. She is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity and the Second Handbook of Academic Integrity.

Professor Stephen Marshall, Victoria University of Wellington

Professor Stephen Marshall (PFHEA) is Director at the Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Academic Development. He researches in the areas of organisational change in higher education, quality, benchmarking, plagiarism and academic integrity, extended reality, artificial intelligence, and the development of policy and strategy supporting and encouraging the effective use of technology for learning and teaching. He is co-editor and special issues editor for the top ranked journal Higher Education Research and Development and he is a faculty member of the biennial ACODE Learning Technologies Leadership Institute. He is co-creator of the internationally recognised and applied e-learning maturity model (eMM, http://e-learning.geek.nz/emm/) and author of the 2018 Springer book: Shaping the University of the Future: Using Technology to Catalyse Change in University Learning and Teaching.

Panel 1: Inclusion, Accessibility and Disability

How can academic integrity be realised in ways that are genuinely inclusive, accessible, and fair? This panel explores how communication, assessment design, and institutional practices can support, or unintentionally hinder, students with disability and diverse learning needs and backgrounds.

It will also examine how academic integrity policies and misconduct processes can be designed to be more transparent, accessible, and equitable, ensuring all students are able to understand expectations, participate confidently in processes, and experience fair outcomes. Together, the discussion will highlight how inclusive, system-wide approaches can strengthen both equity and integrity across the student experience.

Panel 2: Student Voice, Agency, and Partnership in Academic Integrity Systems

How can students move from being positioned primarily as subjects of academic integrity policy to active partners in shaping integrity cultures?

The panel explores how students interpret integrity expectations within AI-enabled learning environments, diverse educational pathways, and evolving assessment practices. Panel members from the Melbourne University Nursing Student Society (MUNSS), a group of mature-aged nursing students, will draw on their undergraduate and postgraduate experiences to share insights into how academic integrity is understood and experienced across different stages of learning, including returning to study, professional alignment, and changing academic expectations.

Their shared institutional context enables informed reflection on policy, assessment, and communication, while their diverse life and professional experiences, common within nursing cohorts, illustrate the realities of academic integrity in practice. These realities include balancing clinical placements, employment, family responsibilities, and the integration of prior knowledge with new academic demands. The discussion will examine gaps between institutional intent and student experience, and how these may contribute to confusion, disengagement, or increased misconduct risk. It will also highlight how student partnership through co-design, peer leadership, and feedback can strengthen trust, clarity, and shared ownership of academic integrity.

Together, the panel will demonstrate how student perspectives can inform more transparent, relevant, and sustainable academic integrity ecosystems.

Panel 3: Leading Resilient and Sustainable Academic Integrity Systems

Building and sustaining resilient academic integrity ecosystems requires leadership at every level of the institution, including at the strategic, operational, and grassroots levels. This panel explores what effective leadership for academic integrity looks like in practice, from senior executives shaping institutional direction to educators and professional staff enacting integrity in everyday decisions and interactions.

The discussion will examine how leadership, both formal and distributed, can align policy, practice, culture, and capability to respond to increasing complexity. Such complexity includes artificial intelligence, evolving assessment practices and growing case volumes. It will also consider how institutions can intentionally develop and support leadership capacity to ensure integrity systems remain robust, fair, and adaptable over time.