Academic Integrity

An online Moodle course to help students avoid plagiarism.

What is academic integrity?

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

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.

Visual that shows three pink circles. The first circle shows 100%, the second one shows 94% and the third one shows 98%.

Feedback from students who have completed the Academic Integrity course is positive:

  • 94% of UG students found the course useful.
  • 98% of PG students found the course useful.
  • 100% of Foundation students found the course useful.

The Academic Integrity course takes about one hour and can be completed by any Oxford Brookes student - foundation, undergraduate or postgraduate - and can be taken at any point during your time at Brookes, but the earlier you take it, the more you will benefit from what you learn.

Academic writing at university is different to the assignments and other projects that you may have written before. You’ll be expected to know how to quote, paraphrase and expand on arguments that you have researched in the literature as well as present your own thoughts and conclusions. Without meaning to, it can be very easy to present your writing in such a way that might initiate academic conduct investigations. Without being aware of the pitfalls, it can be very easy to make such a mistake.

“Did you know that content written by essay mills (companies that produce essays for money) are some of the highest hits in Google for certain keywords?”

Course FAQs

What's the course about?

The course introduces you to the concept of academic integrity which means doing your own work and giving credit to others for their work. Academic integrity is good academic practice in your research, reading and writing and you will need that throughout your academic studies. The course covers:

  • a definition of academic integrity and relevant issues that you will encounter.
  • how to start an assignment by engaging your own thinking.
  • why it is important to use reliable sources of evidence and how to find them through the Library.
  • how to make decisions about academic integrity at each stage of an assignment writing journey.

Who is the course for?

The course is for all Oxford Brookes University students.

Why should I take the course?

You will need to think about academic integrity throughout your academic studies. Taking the course will help you:

  • identify key issues and the connection of academic integrity to your studies.
  • apply strategies when starting an assignment using library resources.
  • recognise and resolve problems with plagiarism and other academic breaches within your own work.

How long does it take to complete the course?

It takes approximately 1 hour to complete all 4 sections of the course.

How do I access the course?

The course is available online as a self-paced course and can be accessed via Moodle.

You will need to log in using your student number as usernam (without typing @brookes.ac.uk) and your normal Brookes password.