Overview
Academic integrity is often taught as a list of prohibited acts. Students hear the word 'plagiarism' many times but rarely practice paraphrasing, summarizing or citing a secondary source. Staff are given similarity and AI-detection tools but little guidance on what the reports can support. The result is anxiety on one side and inconsistent decisions on the other.
Our training reverses the emphasis. Student sessions are hands-on: participants paraphrase a passage and compare versions, decide whether scenarios breach the rules, read a sample similarity report, and draft an AI-use disclosure. Staff sessions cover assessment design that makes authentic work easier, the limits of detection tools, gathering evidence and conducting a fair conversation with a student.
Every workshop is built around your institution's own policy and terminology, not a generic one. We read your academic integrity regulations and AI guidance beforehand and use them in exercises, so participants learn the rules they will actually be held to. We can run a single session for a cohort or department; larger, institution-wide programs are arranged through our faculty development services.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- First-year undergraduates and international students new to Anglophone citation conventions
- Postgraduate and doctoral researchers who need guidance on text recycling, authorship and AI disclosure
- Teaching staff and teaching assistants who receive similarity and AI-detection reports
- Supervisors and program leaders involved in integrity cases or thesis examination
- Student-support, library and writing-center staff who advise on sources and referencing
Common problems we help with
- Students keep making the same citation and paraphrasing mistakes despite warnings
- Your generative AI policy has changed and students and staff are interpreting it differently
- Staff are unsure whether a Turnitin similarity or AI score is enough to raise a case
- Integrity meetings feel adversarial and outcomes vary between departments
- Doctoral researchers are unclear about authorship, self-plagiarism and publication ethics
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Pre-workshop review of your integrity policy, AI guidance, citation style and assessment types
- Student workshops: quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing; citing secondary sources; common knowledge; collaboration versus collusion; contract cheating risks; using AI tools within policy
- Report literacy: how to read a similarity report and what AI indicators can and cannot show
- Researcher sessions: authorship criteria, text recycling, image and data integrity, COPE guidance on AI and authorship
- Staff sessions: assessment design that reduces opportunity and pressure, interpreting reports, evidence gathering, the integrity conversation and proportionate outcomes
- Scenario bank drawn from your discipline and policy, with facilitator discussion notes
- Post-session resources: slide deck, exercise handouts and a one-page checklist for participants
Not included
- Investigating or deciding individual misconduct cases
- Writing your institution's integrity policy (policy review is available through institutional services)
- Training on techniques to avoid detection, in any form
- Accreditation or credit-bearing certification; we issue certificates of attendance only
What you receive
- Tailored workshop
- A live session (online or in person) built around your policy, with exercises and discussion suited to the audience and discipline.
- Scenario bank
- Discipline-relevant cases (for example a lab report with shared data, an essay with a translated source, a code assignment built with an AI assistant) with discussion notes linked to your policy.
- Participant materials
- Slides, handouts and a one-page checklist participants keep; editable versions for your staff to reuse under your branding.
- Certificates of attendance
- Optional certificates confirming participation and topics covered, clearly stated as non-accredited.
- Session summary
- A short note to organizers on questions raised, recurring confusions and points where participants found the policy unclear.
How it works
Needs conversation
We discuss audience, typical problems, recent policy changes and the format that fits (single session, short series, embedded in a course).
Policy review and design
We read your policies and draft an outline and scenarios for your approval.
Delivery
The workshop runs with plenty of hands-on practice and discussion, online or in person.
Materials and follow-up
You receive materials, attendance records if needed and a summary of what participants found difficult.
Frameworks and sample session outlines
- ICAI fundamental values
- The International Center for Academic Integrity frames integrity around honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility and courage, a useful positive basis for student sessions.
- Student workshop outline (90 minutes)
- Why attribution matters (10 min); quote, paraphrase or summarize — hands-on (30 min); scenario sorting: collaboration, collusion, AI use (25 min); reading a sample similarity report (15 min); questions and checklist (10 min).
- Staff workshop outline (2 hours)
- What similarity and AI indicators measure (25 min); false positives and fairness, including multilingual writers (20 min); designing assessments with visible process (30 min); from flag to conversation — role play (35 min); outcomes and consistency (10 min).
- Researcher session outline (2 hours)
- Authorship criteria and contribution statements; text recycling between thesis and articles; image and data integrity; AI tools in research and COPE's position on AI and authorship; handling retracted sources.
- Educative approach
- Sessions distinguish poor academic practice from deliberate misconduct, reflecting the tiered approach many policies take.
Learning outcomes for student sessions
We design student workshops around a small number of skills participants can demonstrate before they leave, rather than a lecture on penalties. The exercises use your citation style and the kinds of sources your students actually use.
- Decide when to quote, paraphrase or summarize, and do each with correct citation
- Recognize close paraphrase and patchwriting in their own writing
- Distinguish permitted collaboration from collusion in group and individual tasks
- Explain what their course allows regarding generative AI and write an accurate disclosure
- Read a similarity report and identify which matches need attention
What staff sessions cover
Staff often ask the same question: is this report enough? We explain how similarity indices are built, why vendors describe AI indicators as unsuitable as the sole basis for action, and which other evidence is more informative — drafts, version history, a conversation about the work, comparison with previous writing. We then practice the integrity conversation itself, which is where fairness is most often won or lost.
Assessment design gets equal time. Tasks that include staged submissions, reflective commentary on process, oral components or personalized data make authentic work easier to demonstrate and misconduct harder, without assuming students are guilty.
Formats
Sessions run live online or in person, from a one-hour briefing to a half-day workshop, and can be split into a short series embedded in an induction or research-skills program. Recorded versions and self-paced materials can accompany the live sessions. For other training formats, see our training and workshops options.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Sample outline: integrity workshop for a first-year engineering cohort
A department asked for a 90-minute workshop for first-year engineering students after repeated issues with shared lab data and code. The outline below is an invented illustration.
Opening scenario
Three students share raw lab readings and one student's Python plotting script. Which parts can be shared under the department's policy, and what must each student acknowledge?
Hands-on practice
Participants paraphrase a paragraph from a materials-science textbook, then compare three versions to identify patchwriting. They then write an acknowledgment for code adapted from an online forum.
AI and report literacy
The group reviews the department's rule on AI coding assistants, drafts a disclosure line, and reads a sample similarity report on a lab report to decide which matches are standard methods language.
Illustrative outline. The department, scenarios and exercises are fictional examples of how a session can be tailored.
What you’ll need to provide
- Your academic integrity policy, generative AI guidance and procedures for suspected misconduct
- Audience profile: level, discipline, size, language background
- Examples of common problems (anonymized), if you are able to share them
- The citation style and any detection tools your institution uses
- Preferred format, duration and date
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number of sessions and their length
- Degree of tailoring: new scenario bank versus adapting existing material
- Audience size and whether multiple facilitators are needed
- Online or in-person delivery, and any travel
- Rights to reuse and adapt materials internally
Turnaround depends on
- Time to receive and review your policies
- Approval of the outline and scenarios on your side
- Scheduling around teaching terms and induction weeks
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Can you tailor the session to our AI policy?
Yes, and we insist on it. Generative AI rules vary widely between institutions and even modules. We build exercises around your wording so participants learn the rules they will be held to.
Do participants receive a certificate?
We can issue certificates of attendance that list the topics covered. They are not accredited qualifications or credit-bearing awards.
Can you train staff who sit on integrity panels?
Yes. We cover report literacy, evidence, the integrity conversation and consistency of outcomes. We do not advise on specific live cases.
Do you offer sessions for doctoral researchers?
Yes. Researcher sessions focus on authorship, text recycling, data and image integrity, publication ethics and AI use in research, with examples from the participants' disciplines.
Can an individual student book integrity coaching?
Yes. One-to-one sessions on citation and paraphrasing are available, and if you are responding to a flagged report, our AI-detection or similarity report review may fit better.
What languages can sessions be delivered in?
Tell us your audience's needs. Sessions are designed in English, and we will discuss options for multilingual cohorts, such as bilingual handouts, during planning.