As someone who has taken the NAIT Academic Integrity Training module three times now, I have some serious doubts about its effectiveness.
The NAIT Academic Integrity Training is a course available to all students on NAIT’s Learning Management System, Brightspace. The training is a “requirement” for students at the beginning of each academic year. In its latest version, its welcome note says: “The NAIT Academic Integrity course is aimed at helping students understand the importance of academic integrity, how to avoid academic misconduct, and the key elements of NAIT’s policies and procedures related to Academic Integrity and Academic Misconduct.”
The whole point of the course is the prevention of academic misconduct, like cheating. But does it really help do that?
I am wrapping up my second year at NAIT and I’ve lost count of how many exams I have written where I witnessed classmates attempting to peek at my or someone else’s paper, or someone pretending to ask the exam proctor a question while their buddies take advantage of the distraction. I do not have the statistics, but it certainly seems that the course does nothing at all to curb academic misconduct.
Having taken the course recently and being able to compare it with its past versions, I think there are a few reasons for its apparent ineffectiveness.
Reason 1: It doesn’t get straight to the point
When making students take an online course, there is only a small window of opportunity at the start to capture their attention before they get bored and decide to do something else. For a subject like academic integrity, going straight to topics like the consequences of academic misconduct would be ideal because these are concrete things students can actually experience.
“Unfortunately, I do not believe improving the course content will make a dent in the rampant culture of academic misconduct at NAIT.”
With this course and its past versions, however, the very first topic is a winding lecture about “Exploring Values,” which is as boring as it sounds.
Now, I understand how it might be important to show how one’s personal values and NAIT’s values of accountability, respect, collaboration, creativity and celebration all relate to academic integrity. But perhaps this discussion of abstract concepts would have been better placed in the middle or towards the end when students have already been informed of how the course is relevant to them.
Reason 2: It’s quite disorganized
Having taken three versions of the course, I detected a pattern of simply adding information to the older version and then presenting that as the newest one. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, in this case it has been done haphazardly.
There were redundant topics that could have been merged and some topics that could have been sequenced better. For instance, an uncaptioned video describing an environmental/room scan was added as a separate topic towards the end of the module, but the video’s accompanying text is in an entirely different section of the training.
All these, plus the occasional typo, might result in the perception of a lack of credibility on the part of the course creator. This is ironic considering how upkeeping NAIT’s reputation is alluded to as a reason students should practice integrity. As well, these issues cause annoyance on the part of the student which can make them lose interest in finishing the course. This brings me into my final point about NAIT’s Academic Integrity Training.
Reason 3: It’s not an actual requirement
This is perhaps the biggest reason why students do not take the course seriously. Though the training is explained as a requirement and “it’s expected that all students finish this training within the first month of their term,” it seems like it is more of a suggestion.
It gets even more absurd when one considers that in order to pass, one must score 100 per cent on the quiz and finish the course within a specified time, both of which are rendered pointless precisely because the course is not required anyway.
To the question of what happens if students do not complete the course, a note by Kathleen Bilodeau of the Academic Integrity Office only says the following: “Completing the Academic Integrity Training Course is part of fulfilling [NAIT’s Student Rights and Responsibilities policy] and demonstrates your commitment to student accountability and expectations as a NAIT student.”
That’s it.
No penalties whatsoever for non-completion. And I know this is true, because I know a lot of people who have simply ignored this course without any consequence to them.
What can be done?
Unfortunately, I do not believe improving the course content will make a dent in the rampant culture of academic misconduct at NAIT. Even if NAIT administration requires this course and penalizes its non-completion, we will still have people cheating on exams and papers when they see that others can get away with it.
The key lies more in the vigilant enforcement of the penalties for cheating, which is the primary responsibility of the class instructors who, in my observation, have been inconsistent at best in their approach to this. This is, however, a topic for a separate article where I can also unpack how the training doesn’t even talk about AI…
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Nugget’s October 2025 print issue. Read it online here.
Feature image via NAIT Content Collective
