Academic Integrity

As of January 2026, changes will be made to the academic misconduct categories and subcategories to ensure conciseness, relevance, and alignment with Conestoga’s policies. These updates were driven by four main goals:

1. Simplification: Reduced the total number of categories from 13 to 7 for easier navigation. In addition, merged overlapping subcategories and moved others to more appropriate categories. For example: Plagiarism and Copying from Others or Self-Copying are now combined under Copying from Others (Plagiarism).  

2. Policy Alignment:  Removed categories and subcategories that do not reflect misconduct (i.e., Copyright Infringement has been removed). Subcategories were rewritten for clarity when and why they constitute misconduct, ensuring consistent application on the Employee Portal. 

3. Improvements for Tracking and Records: Subcategories were refined or subdivided to allow better tracking of incidents and understanding of severity.

4. Adaptation for Digital Learning: Updated language to reflect both physical and digital assessment environment

These changes will help streamline reporting, improve consistency, and ensure academic integrity issues are addressed appropriately under the correct framework.

The list of new categories and subcategories can be found on Types of Incidents.

In Winter 2025, Turnitin released a new feature which allows instructors to more easily compare student submissions to other Conestoga student papers that Turnitin has identified as being similar. This new feature, called Submission Release, means that instructors will not have to send a 'Paper View Request' when they want to see the source text if the source paper is submitted to their own institution’s account.

Instead, after selecting the match within the document viewer, a new window will open. Instructors will be provided with a link to download the assignment in question. This file will be provided as both a PDF and in the same format that the file was originally submitted. This only includes the actual body of text of the source submission, not its details such as paper ID, student who submitted, etc.

This feature allows access only to other papers within our institutional account, ie papers submitted to Conestoga College courses.

Conestoga Library & Learning Services are thrilled to announce the completion of our “Generative AI for Students” LibGuide. This resource empowers students with knowledge about generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications. Generative AI Guidance for Conestoga Students

Please be advised that there is a recent change to the Citing, Referencing, and Paraphrasing Education option on the Employee Portal.

Due to the recent staffing changes, the Library and Learning Services is no longer offering Citing and Referencing Your Work workshop. Students who receive Citing, Referencing, and Paraphrasing Education on their record will be recommended to complete an online Essential Research Skills module, which will teach them about plagiarism and using APA style. They will discover what citations and references are, why they matter, and how to use them in their assignments.

Students can access the Citing and Referencing Module on Library & Learning Services’ Research Skills help page.