Integrity for Students

What does Academic Integrity look like at Waterloo?

As a student, academic integrity means making ethical decisions, asking questions, and following instructions - even when faced with difficult situations. All members of the University of Waterloo are expected to follow the six core values of integrity: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage (ICAI, n.d.).

Moreover, academic integrity skills, like citing, paraphrasing, or summarizing, take practice, and students should ask for help along the way, as needed. 

How students can demonstrate the values of academic integrity is also available as a handout (PDF).  

Values of Integrity

Honesty

Students demonstrate honesty by:

  • following their instructor’s guidelines and expectations for assignments and tests
  • submitting original work and completing individual assessments independently

trust

Students demonstrate trust by:

  • being dependable and reliable in their work, commitments and actions
  • following their instructor’s directions and completing work by the set deadline

Respect

Students show respect by:

  • consistently and accurately citing the work of others in their assignments
  • keeping academic materials and instructor’s intellectual property private (e.g., class slides, assignments, tests, etc.), and not sharing these without the instructor’s permission

Fairness

Students demonstrate fairness by:

  • treating others equally without self-interest or prejudice
  • following the University’s rules and not trying to gain unfair advantages in assessments, mid-terms or tests (e.g., copying someone else’s answers, using their phone to look up information during an exam etc.)

Responsibility

Students demonstrate responsibility by:

  • completing their individual and group work to the best of their abilities and being accountable to themselves, their instructors, their classmates, and the University
  • Seeking help If they are struggling or are not sure of expectations

Courage

Students demonstrate courage by:

  • being brave and standing up for what is right, even in challenging situations. If they think someone has committed an academic offense or is violating a rule - they alert their instructor, Associate Dean, or a staff member

The Office of Academic Integrity has several resources for students:

Not finding what you need?