Integrity Pledge

The purpose of an integrity pledge is to remind students about academic integrity. It starts from a position of trust. It is not a warning about the consequences of cheating.

Every UBC Okanagan student has agreed to:

hereby accept and submit myself to the statutes, rules and regulations, and ordinances (including bylaws, codes, and policies) of The University of British Columbia, and of the faculty or faculties in which I am registered, and to any amendments thereto which may be made while I am a student of the University, and I promise to observe the same.

Source: UBC Okanagan Academic Calendar

 

This includes a commitment to Academic Honesty:

Academic honesty is essential to the continued functioning of the University of British Columbia as an institution of higher learning and research. All UBC students are expected to behave as honest and responsible members of an academic community. Failure to follow the appropriate policies, principles, rules, and guidelines of the University with respect to academic honesty may result in disciplinary action.

Source: UBC Okanagan Academic Calendar

You, and perhaps your entire Department, School, or Faculty might remind students about academic integrity by asking them to sign/agree to an integrity pledge at the beginning of the exam.

Customize the pledge to your discipline

If students in your Department, School, or Faculty are on a trajectory to a professional or accredited degree, you might be able to adapt that profession’s code of conduct into your integrity pledge. Your student are not just students – they’re also emerging professionals and that begins now.

For example, the UBC Okanagan School of Engineering reviewed their Iron Ring ceremony and professional code of conduct to produce this Academic Honesty and Integrity Pledge:

Academic honesty and integrity are essential principles of the University of British Columbia and engineering as a profession. All UBC students are expected to behave as honest and responsible members of an academic community. Engineering students have an even greater responsibility to maintain the highest level of academic honesty and integrity as they prepare to enter a profession with those principles as a cornerstone.

Cheating on exams or projects, plagiarizing or any other form of academic dishonesty are clear violations of these principles.

As a student of the School of Engineering at UBC Okanagan, I solemnly pledge to follow the policies, principles, rules, and guidelines of the University with respect to academic honesty.

By signing this pledge, I promise to adhere to exam requirements and maintain the highest level of ethical principles during the exam period.

Patrick Culbert, in the UBC Vancouver Faculty of Forestry, begins his online, open-book exams with this true/false question. See Patrick’s blog post One Weird Trick to Promote Academic Integrity for more information.

We are taking this exam under unusual (awful) circumstances. We’re all in this together. It is important that this exam is fair to all students, and that no student has an unfair advantage.

With that in mind, please affirm the following:

I affirm that I will neither give assistance to, nor receive assistance from, another student in this exam.

    • True
    • False

The UBC Okanagan School of Health and Exercise Sciences will include the following pledge on their online exams, with options for adding additional statements depending on the format of the exams.

I pledge to uphold the highest standards of ethics and academic integrity as a future health professional. I will abide by the rules my instructor has provided for the final exam and will not violate the UBC Academic Honesty and Standards Policy.

[option 1] This means that I will treat the exam as if I were writing it in class under normal circumstances with no outside assistance (e.g., no lecture notes or readings, exam aids, internet, or people including my peers).

[option 2] This means that I will only use my course notes/readings and will not use any other outside assistance (no internet or other people including my peers)