Academic Integrity Modules (AIM)

Dr Thomas Lancaster

A Computer Scientist at Imperial College London, Dr Thomas Lancaster has published over 30 peer reviewed research papers related to academic integrity since 2000. He regularly delivers keynote speeches on academic integrity, works with sector organisations to lead policy changes, reviews research papers, trains staff and students on issues relating to integrity and collaborates with the international media. Thomas completed his PhD in 2003, which developed technical methods to enable student plagiarism to be identified using a human-friendly process. His research introduced the term contract cheating to academia in 2006 to describe the process where a student uses a third party to complete their assessments for them.

Thomas continues to be an active academic integrity researcher, responsible for recent projects studying integrity across South East Europe, investigating the ghostwriters behind paid contract cheating services and examining solutions to technology-aided cheating in examinations. Thomas believes strongly in working with students as partners to help ensure that academic integrity is rewarded.

Michelle Picard

Michelle Picard is Deputy Director, English Language and Foundation Studies Centre at Newcastle University, Australia. At Adelaide University, she worked for 10 years as Director, Researcher Education, in the School of Education and as Associate Dean Teaching and Learning. Michelle researches in academic literacies and EAP and has taught these areas for 25 years in Australia, Singapore, Oman, the UAE and South Africa. She has written on postgraduate academic integrity.

In 2016, Michelle received the Turnitin Australasian Academic Integrity Award (Global Innovation). She also serves on the International Journal for Educational Integrity editorial board. Her interest in academic integrity lies in its close association with academic literacy at all study levels.

Dr Julia Miller

Dr Julia Miller lectures in academic skills and research communication at the School of Education at the University of Adelaide. She has an honours degree in Modern and Medieval Languages (University of Cambridge); a research MA on anglicisms in Portuguese (Flinders University, South Australia); and a PhD on idioms in English learners' dictionaries (Flinders University, South Australia).

She is the founder of the English for Uni website. This free website has creative, innovative materials, together with video stories based on popular culture, all of which offer a research-based, humorous approach to transcultural language learning and teaching.

Her interest in academic integrity stems from her work with international students and their differing understanding of the need for citation.

Associate Professor Tracey Bretag

Associate Professor Tracey Bretag is based in the School of Management at the University of South Australia. Tracey's research for over 15 years has focused on all aspects of academic integrity. Since 2011 she has led four large Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) funded research projects, and is currently co-leading (with Dr Rowena Harper) the OLT project Contract Cheating and Assessment Design: Exploring the Connection. Tracey is the founding Editor of the International Journal for Educational Integrity (SpringerOpen), Editor-in-Chief of the Handbook of Academic Integrity (Springer 2016), former Chair of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity, and a Past President of the Executive Board to the International Center for Academic Integrity.

Wilma Alexander

Wilma Alexander is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy with Masters in Human-Computer Interaction, Linguistics and Information Science. She has over 15 years of experience as a manager with the online learning team at the University of Edinburgh, where she specialised in usable and accessible digital practice, tutored on the groundbreaking Masters in Digital Education, and developed online staff training on accessible e-learning and online tutoring skills. Since retiring from the University at the end of 2015, Wilma has provided consultancy services on all aspects of online learning, with a special focus on accessibility and usability issues.