I have spent much of my career studying ethics and integrity in educational contexts, including plagiarism, contract cheating, and other forms of educational and scientific fraud. From where I sit in 2026, the half-century from 2000 to 2050 divides into two phases. The first (2000-2025), now a matter of record, was organized around detection of misconduct: institutions increased access to education while building ever more elaborate machinery to verify that student work was authentically human. The second half of this century, now beginning, rests on a different premise. Humans and machines write together, and policing where the human ends and the machine begins is not only difficult, it may well be an exercise in futility. In this, my first editorial as the incoming editor-in-chief of the Journal of Educational Thought (following in the footsteps of my colleague, Ian Winchester) I take a position. The detection paradigm has failed on its own terms, and the sooner we say so, the sooner we can build what comes next. I explore the postplagiarism era as an entry point to the second half of the first century in this millennium.

Academic misconduct appeal services have quietly emerged within China's education marketplace, with commercial agencies promoting themselves on social media to assist international students facing misconduct hearings. While existing research on academic integrity has emphasized prevention and detection, far less attention has been paid to what occurs after an allegation is raised and students enter formal appeal processes. This study examines the nature of these appeal services, how they operate in digital environments, and how platform logics shape their organization and visibility. Using BERTopic modelling, qualitative content analysis and digital ethnography, we analysed 996 promotional texts. We find that these agencies operate in a regulatory and ethical grey zone, ranging from sanction mitigation to claims of defending wrongly accused students. They strategically mobilize platform logics of visibility, credibility and scalability, packaging appeal support across the student lifecycle and translating cases into metrics such as success rates. We conceptualize this process as self-platformization, through which commercial actors reorganize educational assistance in alignment with platform economies. By foregrounding the post-violation stage, the study identifies blind spots in current integrity education and calls for a platform-aware institutional response that strengthens procedural guidance, transparency and post-violation learning support.

Postsecondary institutions increasingly recognize the importance of designing educational experiences that reflect students' diverse identities and life experiences. As online course enrollment continues to rise, it becomes crucial to address how course design can effectively support this diverse student population. Traditional course designs often fail to accommodate the broad spectrum of student backgrounds, resulting in barriers to success and inclusion. In response to this gap, we propose a framework for online course design that prioritizes inclusivity, flexibility, and ethical considerations. This three-layer framework systematically integrates Universal Design for Learning principles with academic integrity values and Indigenous academic integrity principles, providing educators with practical guidance to create ethical and supportive online learning environments that address learner agency while maintaining academic standards.

Academic and research integrity policies serve as important mechanisms for universities worldwide to maintain ethical standards and prevent misconduct. Using qualitative content analysis, we examined publicly available policy documents (n = 24) across Nepal’s higher education system from 13 universities and the University Grants Commission (UGC). Using a framework of five core elements for exemplary academic integrity policy, our analysis showed that while the UGC and 10 universities maintained some integrity requirements, only four universities and the UGC possessed dedicated integrity policy documents. Most existing policies emphasized punitive measures rather than promoting integrity. Based on these findings, we developed 15 policy recommendations and urge Nepali higher education institutions, UGC, and leadership to implement these suggestions when revising their academic integrity frameworks.

In this distinguished research lecture, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming global education and reshaping our approach to teaching, learning, and assessment. Her talk will examine breakthrough technologies that are redefining education such as Generative AI (GenAI), neurotechnology, and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and consider how they might impact education in the coming years. Dr. Eaton will ground the rapid technological changes transforming education in the timeless principles of integrity, ethics, equity, and human rights. Dr. Eaton will talk about how these enduring cornerstones provide a foundation of hope for navigating an era of unprecedented technological progress. At the heart of it all, Dr. Eaton inspire us to think about how we can prepare today’s students to be ethical leaders and citizens of tomorrow. Postplagiarism serves as a backdrop for Dr. Eaton's lecture, which is considered a once-in-a-career honour at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary.

Canadian colleges and polytechnics have been neglected in research on academic integrity, with some exceptions. Therefore, we examined academic integrity policy documents (N = 36) from 16 publicly-funded colleges and polytechnics in Alberta and Manitoba, Canada, replicating a qualitative research design used in previous research. Data were analyzed through the lens of five core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy. Access to policy was straightforward using the search engine present on institutional websites. In terms of approach, the three most frequently identified principles were natural justice/procedural fairness/timeliness, punitive, and ethics/integrity values/standards. The student was identified as the locus of responsibility for upholding academic integrity as a matter of student conduct, with faculty and administrators responsible for investigating and addressing misconduct after cases come to light. Within the documents, detail was extensive with plagiarism, cheating, breaches of exam integrity, collusion, falsification, fabrication, and intentional misrepresentation describing misconduct most commonly. Most documents described supports in the form of procedural steps for reporting academic misconduct, with minimal mention of proactive or remedial education. We also examined whether equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, decolonization, and Indigenization (EDIA-DI) were considered within these documents and found little attention was paid to these values. We call for colleges and polytechnics to update approaches to policy design that include a focus on EDIA-DI, connect academic integrity and professional ethics to educate students on institutional expectations and conduct more research to inform the development of strategies that nurture cultures of academic integrity.

Academic misconduct policies can disadvantage neurodivergent students through ableist assessment design, surveillance technologies, and pedagogies of forced disclosure. In this narrative review, the intersection of neurodiversity and academic integrity in higher education was examined by analyzing 15 sources, using postplagiarism as a conceptual framing. Three themes emerged: (1) neurodivergent students face intersectional challenges when academic integrity frameworks misinterpret their cognitive differences as misconduct indicators; (2) educational technologies present a double impact: AI can improve accessibility, but detection software produces false positives disproportionately affecting neurodivergent students; and (3) competitive assessment practices foster environments where misconduct becomes more likely. Epistemic plurality is proposed as a framework to reconceptualize academic integrity beyond punitive approaches. Rather than standardizing knowledge expression, we can recognize that diverse cognitive styles enrich, rather than compromise, academic quality. Academic integrity must evolve beyond compliance-based models toward inclusive approaches that honour neurodiversity as human variation that enriches academic communities.

Trust has been a central theme in academic integrity discourse for decades. In this piece, I think about trust from a variety of perspectives: student conduct, faculty conduct, and organizational trust. I then discuss the role of trust in addressing misconduct. These framings are drawn from a model of Comprehensive Academic Integrity (CAI), in which academic integrity includes and extends beyond student conduct.

This qualitative study explores graduate students’ perceptions of using a generative AI-powered research application, COREI, and its impact on their sense of intellectual and scholarly ethics. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduate students (n = 10), four doctoral and six masters’, from a large research university in Western Canada. Participants were given access to COREI for one month and encouraged to use its features in their research projects. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed four main themes: (1) academic integrity and generative AI collaboration, (2) agency in the generative AI-assisted research process, (3) authorship and the personalization of AI-generated content, and (4) originality through generative AI-assisted research. Although some participants initially expressed concerns about the potential for AI to compromise academic integrity, many came to view COREI as a collaborative tool that, when used responsibly, could enhance their research without infringing upon their scholarly ethics. Participants emphasized the importance of human agency and decision-making in the AI-assisted research process, and the need for critical evaluation and personalization of AI-generated content to maintain authorship. Originality emerged as a collaborative feat between human expertise and AI’s generative capabilities. The findings suggest a need for reconceptualizing traditional notions of agency, authorship, and originality in the context of AI-assisted research. The study highlights the importance of developing ethical frameworks and institutional policies that prioritize human agency and critical engagement with AI-generated content, while also emphasizing the need for further research on the long-term impacts of generative AI on intellectual and scholarly ethics.

For three years, teachers and teacher educators have been struggling to respond to the advent of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and its implications for teaching and learning. Building on DeLuca et al.’s (2025) AI3 framework, this paper is situated at the intersections of artificial intelligence, academic integrity, and assessment innovation: three critical ‘AIs’ for the current moment. Owing to a dearth of literature reviews at this intersection, this paper presents a rapid scoping review protocol for AI3 in preservice teacher education. The protocol follows the Joanna Briggs Institute’s updated manual for scoping reviews and the Preferred Reporting Itemsfor Systematic Reviews Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) reporting standards (Aromataris & Munn, 2020). The studies included in the review will be analyzed for insights on these topics, particularly the innovative practices possible in an age of GenAI. Our findings will be relevant to teacher educators in particular and more broadly to educational researchers and practitioners interested in integrity, innovation, and defensible practice in ever-shifting GenAI spaces.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has challenged assumptions about assessments in higher education. Although GenAI chatbots create opportunities for inclusive learning, their misuse raises new concerns about academic integrity. This study provides empirical insight to inform assessment practices designed to include chatbots ethically. Guided by a postplagiarism framing, our research question was: How do educators make meaning of the ethical boundaries involved in evaluating students' skills when chatbots are integrated in assessments? Adopting a qualitative design informed by an interpretive paradigm and narrative inquiry, we conducted a thematic narrative analysis of interviews with higher education staff (N = 28). Educators positioned themselves as stewards of learning with integrity within their disciplines, delineating boundaries that distinguished acceptable from unacceptable chatbot use. Across narratives, participants viewed prompting and critical thinking skills as compatible with chatbot integration. In contrast, perspectives on assessments focusing on writing skills were nuanced, ranging from specific inclusion to complete exclusion, depending on intended learning outcomes, disciplinary conventions and individual conceptions about learning with integrity. Educators also identified broader challenges, such as the potential for language standardisation, overreliance, blurred authorship and untraceable forms of cheating. These findings extend ongoing debates about integrity and assessments in technologically mediated learning.

Assessment accommodations are used globally in higher education systems to ensure that students with disabilities can participate fairly in assessment. Even though assessment accommodations are supposed to promote access, not success, they are commonly portrayed as potentially being cheating in that they provide certain students with unfair advantages. This may lead students to avoid applying for accommodations for fear of being labelled 'cheaters'. Various security practices are often implemented within assessment accommodation processes to detect and prevent cheating and malingering. However, there remains a lack of theoretical understanding of the discursive interconnections between assessment accommodations and assessment security. In this study, we conduct a critical policy analysis to unpack how Canadian assessment accommodation policies have problematised assessment accommodations as a potential site for cheating. We show that Canadian universities use considerable resources to prevent cheating as accommodations are administered. In doing so, they portray students with disabilities as potential cheaters. We situate these policies in the wider societal context of the 'fear of the disability con', which perpetuates discrimination towards people with disabilities. We argue that assessment accommodation policies belong to the realm of assessment security rather than integrity and may thus fail to promote equity and inclusion.

This essay explores the integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into pre-service teacher education amidst contemporary debates on technology in education. It highlights the cautious stance taken by educational authorities, such as the Alberta Teachers’ Association, which advises against involving students directly with AI tools. The discussion contrasts this cautionary position with global trends, noting advanced AI curricula in countries like China and Japan. Emphasizing the necessity for hands-on GenAI training for pre-service teachers, the essay advocates equipping future educators with the skills and knowledge to effectively incorporate AI into their practice. It calls for engaging students as partners in learning and rethinking traditional notions of plagiarism in a postplagiarism world where AI co-creation becomes common. Keywords: Pre-service teacher education, postplagiarism, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), AI literacy, educational technology integration

The purpose of this article is to explore theoretical and practical considerations for decolonizing academic integrity. I explore values associated with academic integrity, including both Western and Indigenous perspectives. I draw from scholarship on decolonizing research methods and practices, contemplating the transferability to academic integrity practices and policies. Synthesizing key concepts from the literature, I theorize strategies for decolonizing academic and research integrity in broad terms, focusing on four principles, which can translate into concrete actions: (a) centering marginalized voices and perspectives in knowledge production; (b) recognizing the interconnectedness of knowledge and the importance of contextualization; (c) resisting the perpetuation of historical oppression in academic integrity, and (d) knowledge caretaking.

This study reports on a novel phenomenon observed in scholarly publications. Some research articles unrelated to the field of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated content (AIGC) contain phrases such as ‘As an AI language model …’ The authors conceptualize this phenomenon as ‘AIGC footprints.’ To provide early evidence, they conducted a small-scale sample investigation by collecting twenty-five articles. These articles were published by authors from countries in Central Asia, South Asia, and Africa. Among these authors, there were assistant professors, doctoral and master’s students. Single authors and single affiliations were more common. Analysis of the article content revealed that some authors utilized ChatGPT for literature reviews or idea generation. The twenty-five articles with AIGC footprints were published in eighteen different academic journals. The emergence of AIGC footprints reflects the potential challenges faced by scholarly publishing and higher education. The authors also provide several recommendations.

This article I argue for the prioritisation of human rights when developing and implementing misconduct policies. Existing approaches may be perpetuate inequities, particularly for individuals from marginalised groups. A human-rights-by-design approach, which centres human rights in policy development, revision, and implementation, ensuring that every individual is treated with dignity and respect. Recommendations for implementing a human-rights approach to misconduct investigations and case management are offered, covering areas such as procedural fairness, privacy, equity, and the right to education. Additional topics covered are the need to limit surveillance technologies, and the need to recognize that not all use of artificial intelligence tools automatically constitutes misconduct. I disentangle the differences between equity and equality and explain how both are important when considering ethics and integrity. A central argument of this paper is that a human-rights-by-design approach to integrity does not diminish standards but rather strengthens educational systems by cultivating ethical awareness and respect for personhood. I conclude with a call to action with a seven-point plan for institutions to adopt a human-rights-based approach to ethics and integrity. In the age of artificial intelligence and neurotechnology, insisting on human rights and dignity when we investigate and address misconduct allegations is an ethical imperative that has never been more important.