SAIP FAQs

1. Why is there a new policy on student academic integrity? What happened to the Code of Student Behaviour (COSB)?
  • The Code of Student Behaviour was the policy governing both non-academic and academic conduct for students at the University of Alberta from 2001 to 2022. 
  • In 2021, the Ministers of Advanced Education and Status of Women issued a joint letter requiring Alberta post-secondary institutions to overhaul the way they engaged sexual violence. As part of the University of Alberta’s response, on November 22, 2022, the non-academic sections of the COSB were removed and the new Student Conduct Policy approved.   
  • At the same time, a second working group of members of the University community met to review the remaining sections of the COSB, that addressed academic misconduct to identify goals and principles for revisions, and to oversee the creation of the new policy.
  • The working group took into account the extensive literature on addressing academic integrity, models developed at other institutions, their own significant experience in the area, and the principles underlying the University of Alberta as an institution.
  • On April 29, 2024, General Faculties Council approved the Student Academic Integrity Policy and rescinded the Code of Student Behaviour, both of which took effect on September 1, 2024.
2. What are the key differences between the Code of Student Behaviour (COSB) and the Student Academic Integrity Policy (SAIP)?
  • The COSB focused on punishing students who were found to have violated the rules laid out in the policy. It set out student’s rights under the policy, the rules students were expected to follow, the sanctions that could be applied to them, and the procedures that laid out the process decision makers were expected to follow. 
  • The problem with the way that the COSB approached misconduct was that it focussed only on encouraging students to behave appropriately by avoiding punishment. Any learning by students was incidental and at the discretion of decision makers. It also presumed that students understood all of their responsibilities when they entered the University, something which is rarely true.
  • The SAIP contains all the elements of a complaint process as well, including rules, sanctions, and procedures, although they have been updated to make them more understandable and up to date.  The policy takes some of the workload off instructors and gives them a choice as to the degree they wish to participate in the process. The appeal process has also been simplified, bringing it into harmony with the one in the Student Conduct Policy.
  •  The most significant change under the SAIP is that it allows Faculties, when they think it is appropriate, to address instances of academic misconduct through non-disciplinary processes.  Students need to take responsibility for their behaviour, explore it’s impact on others, learn how to avoid getting into trouble in the future, and accept any reasonable consequences stemming from their actions.
  • The SAIP was also reorganised to make it easier to find relevant information. For example, it separates the policy and procedures into different documents and puts the violations and sanctions into separate appendixes.
3. Why is it important that we address academic misconduct?
Academic misconduct harms many people surrounding the student, as well as the community as a whole. Instructors have to design courses with an eye to identifying and reporting academic misconduct, limiting the ways that they can communicate skills and knowledge to all students. Engaging academic misconduct also takes time away from other work. Other students who do their work honestly are harmed when a student gains an unfair academic advantage over them, impacting on their grades and opportunities they may be seeking. Every current and former student is harmed if the University gets a reputation as a place that tolerates academic misconduct. The University has to protect the reputation of its grades, degrees, certifications, and research.
4. What are Non-Disciplinary Accountability Options (NDAOs)?
  • NDAOs are agreements that Faculties reach with students to hold them accountable for their behaviour and lay out a set of expectations on things the student will do and won’t do in the future. The student has to agree that they have done something wrong and participate in determining appropriate ways of addressing it. NDAOS can be very simple or they can be very sophisticated mechanisms for addressing multiple needs in a student.
  • If a student completes the NDAO and is never again found to engage in academic misconduct, when they graduate the record of the NDAO will be purged and the student will be able to apply to other programs and legitimately say they have never been found to have violated a discipline policy, at least as far as SAIP is concerned. That is a significant change since students who were found to commit violations under the COSB unintentionally and were given light sanctions were then unable to enter some professional or graduate programs.
5. What do we mean by accountability? Why is it necessary in an academic community?
  • Every member of an academic community affects everyone else and has a responsibility not to engage in harmful behaviour. Whether that harm was intentional or not is not relevant. Being accountable means accepting when you have caused harm, finding ways to offset that harm to the best of your ability, and taking steps to make sure you don’t do it again. A person who authentically takes accountability is much less likely to cause harm to others in the future. and be productive members of our community.
  • Pure disciplinary processes, like the COSB, do not encourage students to take accountability for their actions and, arguably, can do the opposite. Since the focus is on whether and how much a student will be punished, a student is often incentivized to deny their actions and focus on engaging procedural processes to avoid that punishment.
6. What if a student isn’t truthful when they take responsibility for their actions to participate in an NDAO?
Even if a student isn’t honest about their responsibility at first but engages in learning, looks for ways to offset their behaviour, accepts reasonable consequences, and doesn’t engage in harmful behaviour in the future, the likelihood is they will come to understand the concern by the time they graduate. If they aren’t honest, don’t learn, and continue to engage in inappropriate behaviour, there is a very good chance that they will be reported again and their prior behaviour can be taken into account in determining the appropriate outcome.
7. Why do we still have a complaint process in SAIP?
There are times when the behaviour addressed by the SAIP is simply too serious to be allowed to continue. If the Faculty does not feel that a student is a candidate for a NDAO, or it is not possible to reach an agreement, then the matter has to be referred to a  Faculty member to make a decision as to whether the student violated the policy and determine appropriate sanctions.
8. Does the Dean hear all of the cases in their Faculty?
The SAIP, as was the case under the COSB, assumes that the Dean can designate someone or even several people to exercise their authority under the policy. Both the positions labelled as Dean and Faculty Decision Maker are people to whom the Dean has delegated their authority over academic integrity.
9. How does a Faculty determine whether to use the non-disciplinary or complaint processes?
When a Dean receives a concern from an instructor about a potential violation of the SAIP, they provide the student with a brief description of the concern and give them an opportunity to provide a response and to make a case as to which the appropriate process would be to address it. The Dean can assess the student’s sincerity, what information was available to the student before they chose to gain an unfair academic advantage, and any past complaint involving the student, whether through an NDAO or a formal complaint. Both the Dean and the student have to agree that an NDAO is the appropriate process in order to use it. If a Dean declines to use an NDAO process, there is no appeal of that decision.
10. Why are there two different positions with delegated authority from the Dean of the Faculty?
The discussion with the student in the initial phase and the NDAO phase are very different from the kind of discussion that takes place in a formal complaint process. A student needs to be able to have a candid conversation with the Dean without concern that what they say will later be used against them in determining a complaint or sanction. Any formal complaint needs to be referred to a Faculty Decision Maker, who will begin the case from scratch based on the evidence submitted by the instructor and what they learn from the students themselves.
11. What if a student refuses to accept responsibility for their actions but still wants to participate in an NDAO?
Accepting responsibility for their behaviour is a fundamental requirement to participate in an NDAO, If a student disagrees they have engaged in inappropriate academic behaviour, the case will have to be referred to a Faculty Decision Maker for a decision.
12. Does a student get to keep the full grade of their assignment in an NDAO, even if they submitted work based on artificial intelligence or someone else?
The grade on the course element in question is part of the agreement in an NDAO. It would be unreasonable and counterproductive for a student to be given a grade they did not earn by their own work. Having said that, this is not a sanction and should be a reasonable attempt to assign a fair grade. If a student submits a paper to which they didn’t contribute anything, it would not be unreasonable to have the agreement determine that the grade for the paper is 0.
13. What are the benefits to a student of participating in an NDAO?
An NDAO gives the student the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and to work towards regaining the trust they have lost with the community. If they take the NDAO seriously they will gain knowledge and skills that will help them to avoid getting in trouble again in the future.
14. What happens if a student doesn’t complete the NDAO?
The case is then referred to a Faculty Decision Maker to make a decision about the alleged violation.
15. What happens if a student completes the NDAO and graduates without getting into trouble again?
The University will then expunge the record of the NDAO and the student will be able to move forward without a history of a disciplinary violation under the policy.
16. What is the role of the instructor in SAIP? How is it different from the COSB?
  • The SAIP gives the instructor more flexibility to determine the extent of their engagement in the process. It eliminates the meeting with students to discuss their conduct as required by the COSB. The instructor can recommend the use of non-disciplinary or disciplinary accountability to the Faculty, as well as raise issues or outcomes they think should be considered.
  • Instructors will be able to voluntarily engage, in conjunction with the Faculty, in non-disciplinary processes with the student related to their behaviour but it is not a requirement. For example, they could volunteer to be the person who discusses the harm caused by the student’s behaviour. . All of these actions should be done as part of an agreement made by the Dean with the student and tracked by the Faculty.
17. What are the key differences between the non-disciplinary and complaint processes?
NDAOs are about working with a student to address their behaviour. The complaint process is about the University making a decision about that student to address their behaviour. Both processes are necessary, but the NDAO process has the most potential for a positive outcome for the student and the community.
18. Why doesn’t the SAIP give instructor’s the authority to remove a student from class, as the COSB did?
After reviewing the COSB section on Class Disruption, it was decided that it was not needed in SAIP since instructor's already have the authority to manage their classrooms and can remove a student if they are disruptive. By making it a sanction in a student conduct policy, it created an obligation to develop more restrictive processes to ensure procedural fairness. An instructor continues to have the authority to remove a student if they are interfering with the proper functioning of the class, although it is recommended that they use that authority judiciously since a student could challenge the decision if it appears to be  arbitrary. The instructor should contact University of Alberta Protective Services for assistance if a student refuses to leave or you are concerned about safety.. The instructor can also engage the Dean of Students Office (doscases@ualberta.ca) for particularly serious incidents, especially if there is a pattern of disruptive behaviour. That conversation might result in a complaint under the SCP.
19. Does the SAIP only apply to things students do in a classroom? What about when they are engaging in research or presenting at a conference?
The SAIP includes addressing violations by students under the Research and Scholarship Integrity Policy. This includes any aspect of research, including outside of their responsibilities as students, as well as academic exercises such as conference presentations and publications.Those external violations must be in contexts linked back to the University of Alberta, such as when the student identifies themselves as a student at the University, or in the context of agreements between the University and other institutions, partners, or agencies.
20. Why is there no reference to violations in professional programs in SAIP?
  • In reviewing the violations under the COSB, the working group determined that Section 30.3.3 Inappropriate Behaviour in Professional Programs was not needed in the new policy as the Faculties intending to address any such concerns already had the authority to do so under the Practicum Intervention Policy (PiP). Section 30.3.3 often led to confusion as to the appropriate process to address behaviour in a professional program and in what context it could be done.
  • The same underlying behaviour may be addressed under the PiP and either the Student Conduct Policy (SCP) or the SAIP, but the goals and approaches of those policies are very different. SCP and SAIP apply equally to all students. The PiP looks at a student working with the public in a capacity where they are bound by a code of ethics in a profession governed by legislation passed by the Province of Alberta. Both the SCP and SAIP contain expectations that decision makers will coordinate with others tasked to evaluate the same behaviour under a different policy.