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The new Federal government-funded Education Integrity Unit will monitor academic misconduct at Australian Universities. Researchers report that between 6 and 10 per cent of students have cheated during their studies. The new academic Unit will address “emerging threats” to academic and research integrity, admission standards and information, student safety, foreign interference, cybersecurity, fraud, and corruption.

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.

The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency is tightening its cooperation with international regulators to tackle contract cheating on an industrial scale. A recent study shows that 10 per cent of students pay others to complete their assessments. The Federal Government has introduced penalties of up to two years of imprisonment and fines of up to $210,000 for contract cheats.

The Minister of Education announced that cheats selling their services to Australian university students would face two years imprisonment or fines of up to AU$100,000. Students who cheat will also be subject to their institutions’ own academic integrity policies and sanctions. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency will be empowered to request legal measures to force internet service providers and search engines to block cheating websites.

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.

“Contract cheating” is becoming commonplace in many Australian universities, with a range of easily accessed services offering to complete assignments or sit an exam for money. Some services even offer the students the possibility of choosing the type of grade, the price is adjusted according to the grade they wish to obtain. The Government submitted new legislation and the person providing cheating services to students could face two years in jail and a $210,000 fine.

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.

Up to 1000 students at the University of Sydney are in limbo after their final exam was abruptly cancelled on Friday morning due to fears the exam had been compromised. Commerce students sitting their final exam for the compulsory business insights unit had just begun reading the exam paper when they were interrupted by an announcement from the examiner. The university said the replacement exam would have the same structure and weighting as the original exam, and warned "any student found guilty of misconduct risks disciplinary proceedings including expulsion".

A Melbourne start-up has created anti-plagiarism software which is being trialled at four major Australian universities. It's called Cadmus and it tracks students as they complete assignments. The editing and authentication software – which operates like a Google document and can be accessed anywhere – uses keystroke analytics to build up a profile of a student's typing style. This allows it to detect when someone else is dishonestly involved in their work.