Australian universities plan to monitor students through software like Proctorio or ProctorU as they take exams from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Both platforms require students to grant access to their computer’s webcam, microphone, and keystrokes to prevent cheating. Students and academics are concerned about the lack of full transparency about where data is stored, who can access it, and whether it complies with current Australian regulations.

Perth’s Murdoch University and other universities have become heavily reliant on foreign student fees to bolster their incomes. 50 professors from the Australian Research Council’s Laureate Fellowship condemned the decision to take legal action against an associate professor from the university. Deeply concerned about the integrity of academic teaching, the professor complained on television that the university was not only enrolling international students whose English was inadequate but also allow them to graduate.

The national Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program revealed that Universities across Australia enroll hundreds of thousands of foreign students simply as ‘cash cows’, however unprepared to undertake degree courses. Academics told ABC they have seen record numbers of academic misconduct cases and more and more international students struggling, some using phone apps to translate lectures. Following the ABC broadcast, the National Tertiary Education Union called for greater public accountability for universities in dealing with international students.

Universities are being urged to block websites that sell essays, identify cheating "hot spots" and consider publishing data on breaches of academic integrity. As universities grapple with a rise in contract cheating – which involves students outsourcing assessments – Australia's higher education watchdog has unveiled new guidelines to tackle the issue. A recent survey by a University of South Australia associate professor who helped create the guidelines, found that 6 per cent of Australian students engaged in cheating.

A secret report by Ernst & Young into credit card use at Murdoch University has revealed its four most senior academics racked up almost AU$1 million (US$753,000) in expenses in two years. Murdoch refused to release the document until The Australian won an appeal to the West Australian Information Commissioner, arguing that the report was in the public interest as it involved the use of taxpayers’ funds. The revelations come after Western Australia’s Corruption and Crime Commission last year described Murdoch’s financial controls over corporate credit cards as “lax” and found that the parameters of card usage were “extremely broad”.

The Chinese government is buying influence over Australian universities by donating libraries and funds for institutes as part of a broader push to strengthen its soft power in the country, two Australian journalists have argued. The debate in Australia echoes concerns in the US, where the Chinese government has been accused of seeking to exert control over the academy by funding Confucius Institutes on university campuses.