The University suggests academic misconduct is rare, but students say otherwise.
Senate approved a report on Jan. 29 sharing that the University found 1.34 per cent of students to have committed departures from academic integrity in the 2024-25 school year. The report, presented by the Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures, is required annually by the Queen’s Academic Integrity Procedures.
The 1.34 percentage marks a decrease from 1.62 per cent of students in 2023-24, and 1.54 per cent of students in 2022-23.
Education-related faculties saw the largest percentage of their students being found to have departed from academic integrity: 4.56 per cent. Engineering saw the second largest percentage, 3.79 per cent, and the Smith School of Business saw the third largest percentage, 2.05 per cent—with most departures coming from the Commerce program.
These numbers differ from student self-report data, with 80 per cent of Commerce students having self-reported at least one instance of academic misconduct in a 2024 survey. The Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures determined that this gap suggests many incidents have gone undetected or unreported.
Moreover, despite over 80 per cent of students, staff, and faculty self-reporting use of ChatGPT in a 2025 survey, use of unauthorized content generation only ranked fourth in the number of findings of departure from academic integrity, by category. Instead, “failure to abide by academic rules” was the most common offence, followed by plagiarism and “departure from the core values of academic integrity.”
Over 70 per cent of sanctions ordered in response to these departures were partial or total loss of marks on the assignment. The second most reported sanctioning method was an oral or written warning, with the third being a requirement to submit a revised or new piece of work.
Only five students were required to withdraw from their faculty, or from the school, for a specificized minimum period of time. The reasons for placing this sanction included students sharing screenshots of exams, forging doctors’ notes, bringing cell phones into exam halls, and using generative AI.
One student, who received a requirement to withdraw for at least 10 years, forged an e-mail purporting to be a doctor in order to substantiate three false medical notes they had previously submitted. They went as far as to create a fake website for a medical clinic, and a fake e-mail address associated with said clinic.
The Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures has committed to further investigating the divergence between formal findings and self-reported numbers in future meetings.
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academic integrity, academic misconduct, AI, artificial intelligence, Queen’s Academic Integrity Procedures, Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures
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