Academic Integrity Policies of Publicly Funded Universities in Western Canada

In short

Integrity policies at 24 public universities in western Canada lean mostly towards punishment, the authors report after analysing 45 documents, and only one names contract cheating as such.

What it looked at

A qualitative analysis of 45 integrity policy documents gathered from 24 public universities in western Canada, coded against 5 features of strong policy: access, detail, responsibility, approach and support.

What it means for teaching

A prompt for a department to compare its own policy with the authors' finding that educative support was thin, keeping in mind it covers one region.

Limits

Covers written policies at public universities in one region, so it says little about how policies are applied or about institutions elsewhere.

Cited 141 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.