10 December 2020

4 min read

You can help protect academic standards by feeding into a review of academic regulations.

Joint message from University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Paul Hayes, and Students’ Union Learning Experience Officer Rama Hilouneh and Democracy and Campaigns Officer Destiny Karakus

It’s vital that all universities safeguard academic standards and prevent cheating and fraud, which is why we have signed the Academic Integrity Charter for UK Higher Education.

The new charter, created by the independent Quality Assurance Agency, reinforces our strong belief that academic misconduct is unacceptable, and provides a set of seven guiding principles including institutional autonomy, engaging with and empowering students and staff, and that everyone is responsible for preventing misconduct as part of a ‘whole community’ approach.

In the short term, we are working via Associate Deans (Academic) to gather information on the good work already happening in Faculties to combat academic misconduct, with the aim of developing an academic integrity action plan as part of our annual reporting on examination and assessment outcomes.

The University has recently launched a review of our regulations, including the examination and assessment regulations, disciplinary processes (including those relating to assessment offences) and appeals. We will be working closely with the Students' Union throughout that review to ensure that we have transparent sustainable practices in place for the longer-term to discourage and manage academic misconduct.

Get involved in the review

If you'd like to contribute ideas and feedback, contact either: