05.4 Academic Integrity

Moore College is a Christian academic fellowship. As Christians, we aim to practise humility, honesty, and integrity in all things, including our academic efforts. We also seek to work within the standards of Western academia, which we belong to. That is why Moore values and requires Academic Integrity.

Academic Integrity is a virtue. We learn from those who have gone before us, and when we use their words or their ideas, we acknowledge it. At Moore, when you use another person’s work, acknowledge it with a footnote. When you use their words, acknowledge it with a footnote and quotation marks.

If you don’t—whether intentionally or accidentally—it is plagiarism.

Practise Academic Integrity, and:

1. You acknowledge that your information came from someone else and belongs to them.

2. You show that you have read and considered important voices in the ongoing ‘academic conversation’ about your topic.

3. You protect yourself against committing Academic Misconduct.

To not practise Academic Integrity is to commit Academic Misconduct, and that can carry stiff penalties at Moore. This is because every member of the Moore College Community is expected to show the humility to acknowledge our intellectual debts to others, the honesty to protect others’ intellectual property, and the integrity to distinguish our work from the work of others.

College is obligated as an accredited Australian tertiary institution to teach, promote, and enforce Academic Integrity. It is not optional for Moore or for you as a student.

There are many reasons Academic Integrity is important, including:

1. Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary aspects of education

Education in Australia differs from education elsewhere, and this includes Academic Integrity. So if you studied commerce, computers, or medicine at university—or if you have not yet studied at a tertiary level in Australia—then our practices of Academic integrity may be as much a change for you as our curriculum. Likewise, if you come from another country, academic integrity may be very different here.

2. Using computers for your assessments

At Moore, you will read many online sources, and you will use information from electronic books and journals. You will cut and paste or write notes from them and use these in your assignments. But be careful when you do this, that you distinguish your ideas from the ideas of others.

Students may use generative Artificial Intelligence (“genAI,” including ChatGPT and similar apps) for outlines, overviews, and even writing and style. This is a developing area; positive uses abound. However, students can be tempted to submit work that is not entirely original to them. Only submit work that is original to you at Moore.

Your Academic Integrity Training Module will cover these, and College provides guidance on how to helpfully use genAI.

3. Our legal and ethical obligations:

As an accredited educational institution in Australia, Moore is obligated to abide by Australian copyright law, to pay owners when we use their intellectual property, and to acknowledge their ideas. Moore is obliged to behave ethically, enforce Academic Integrity, and investigate and act on possible breaches of Academic Integrity.[1]

As you complete the Academic Integrity Training Module, we will point you to resources to help you practise Academic Integrity. Please don’t worry, but please be vigilant.

[1] Moore uses Turnitin software for all assessments. Turnitin is to help you check your work and avoid inadvertent academic misconduct. It is also to help us spot instances where students may not have fully followed Academic Integrity, and it can also flag text that is possibly written by genAI programs.