Postgraduate research students and academic integrity: ‘It's about good research training’

Findings from a study on academic integrity at Australian universities challenge the presumption that postgraduate research students have prior knowledge of academic integrity. A review of online academic integrity policy in 39 Australian universities found that one in five policies had no mention of higher degree by research (HDR) students. Despite each of the six universities in our study having an academic integrity policy for HDR students, one in five HDR student survey respondents said they had never heard of academic integrity, two in five said they did not know whether their university has an academic integrity policy, and among the student groups they were the least satisfied with the information they had received about how to avoid an academic integrity breach. We argue for support and training in academic integrity for HDR students and draw insights from the interviews with senior stakeholders on how this could be realised.