Academic Conduct for Faculty and Staff

• Identifies and reviews a student’s act of alleged academic misconduct. This may include meeting with the student. The student needs to have enough information about the potential allegation and enough notice about the meeting, so that the student fully understands and can respond to the instructor/invigilator’s concerns. If several students are involved in the same allegation, procedural fairness requires individual meetings with the students.
• Decides if the allegation warrants further action.
• It if does, the instructor/invigilator reports the matter in writing to the academic chair/coordinator responsible for the course.
• Presents evidence at a first offence hearing.
• May also present evidence, in conjunction with the academic chair/coordinator, at a first offence appeal hearing, at a second/third offence hearing, and/or at a second/third appeal hearing.

First offence:

• Holds the hearing and hears the student and the instructor/invigilator’s evidence. If several students are involved in the same allegation, procedural fairness requires individual meetings with the students.
• Reviews the evidence and makes the decision, based on the balance of probabilities.
• Prepares the decision letter. Note that the student can appeal the decision to the dean (or associate dean, where applicable).

First offence appeal:

• Presents evidence at the appeal hearing on behalf of the program, either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator.

Second/third offence:

• Refers the allegation to the school/department’s dean (or associate dean, if applicable).
• Presents evidence at the hearing on behalf of the program, either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator.

Second/third offence appeal:

• Presents evidence at the hearing on behalf of the program, either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator.

First offence appeal:

• Holds the hearing and hears the student’s evidence and the program’s evidence (as provided by the academic chair/coordinator either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator).
• Reviews the evidence and makes the decision, based on the balance of probabilities.
• Prepares the decision letter. Note that the decision is final and the student cannot appeal it.

Second/third offence:

• Holds the hearing and hears the student’s evidence and the program’s evidence (as provided by the academic chair/coordinator either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator). If several students are involved in the same allegation, procedural fairness requires individual meetings with the students.
• Reviews the evidence and makes the decision, based on the balance of probabilities.
• Prepares the decision letter. Note that the student can appeal the decision to the vice president academic.

• Sets up the Appeal Panel to hear a second/third offence appeal, if applicable.
• Chairs the Appeal Panel and hears both the student’s evidence and the program’s evidence (as provided by the academic chair/coordinator either solely or in conjunction with the instructor/invigilator).
• Reviews the evidence and makes the decision based on the balance of probabilities.
• Prepares the decision letter. Note that the decision is final, and the student cannot appeal it.

• Acts as a resource for instructors, academic chairs/coordinators, associate deans, deans and the vice president academic.
• Assists with hearings as needed.
• Assists with drafting and reviewing decision letters.
• Coordinates proceedings where a student’s misconduct is both academic and non-academic.
• Creates and manages standard processes and templates, to ensure consistency across the Academic Division.
• Provides guidance in difficult, complex or legally problematic cases.
• Provides training and education to members of the SAIT community.
• Reviews and provides guidance on sanctions, to ensure consistency and fairness across the Academic Division.

• Reviews grounds for appeal of second and third academic misconduct appeals
• Assists with second and third-level academic appeal hearings, as needed.
• Assists with drafting and reviewing appeal decision letters related to second and third-level academic appeal hearings.

If misconducts happen within a very short time of each other, SAIT normally treats them as one big offence (in this case, a first offence), and the decision letter will address all of these acts at the same time.

Students need a reasonable opportunity to learn from academic misconduct so that they can apply what they have learned to avoid future academic misconduct. This is particularly important in situations where subsequent offences occur before the student has even had a hearing for the first offence.

However, if the offences happen a few weeks apart and hearings have already been held on the earlier offences, these would usually be treated as separate offences. This can be a difficult decision to make, as it depends on a situation’s particular facts. Please discuss this with the Office of Community Conduct.

Administrative law (which applies to you as an administrative decision-maker) requires individual hearings (see Governing Principle 6, procedure AC.3.4.3 Student Academic Conduct).

This requirement helps a student feel more comfortable telling you what really happened without the pressure of being in a group hearing where classmates are present who may have tried to coach the student, or told the student what to say, or pressured the student to take the fall for them.

This requirement also protects student confidentiality. A student may have confidential information to share about their personal situation or as an explanation for their acts, and this information should not be disclosed in a group setting.

Having said that, in some very limited situations, a group hearing might be appropriate. Before proceeding with a group hearing, please discuss this with the Office of Community Conduct.

This is an inappropriate approach for several reasons:

• All SAIT employees are expected to follow SAIT’s procedures. AC.3.4.3 Student Academic Conduct is clear that a finding of academic misconduct must result in one of the sanctions set out in the procedure, even if as minor as simply a warning notice, and that the Office of Community Conduct needs to be notified. It is unacceptable for a SAIT employee to invent their own new procedure or ignore an existing one.
• A finding of academic misconduct must be sent to the Office of Community Conduct. The OCC is the official record-keeper for student misconduct and will enter it into the student’s record. If it is not entered, then if (or when) the student commits another offence, there is no way for SAIT to know if this subsequent offence is actually a second offence, third offence, or so on, which affects the processes and the sanctions. There have been prior situations where students committed several academic misconducts in their studies and these were never reported officially by the instructor/academic chair. As a result, each offence was treated as a “first” offence when, in fact, these students should have been expelled.
• Overlooking a student’s academic misconduct and/or burying it within a school/program damages SAIT’s reputation as an institution that upholds academic integrity, is unfair to other students who commit misconduct and are properly treated as per SAIT’s procedure, and is unfair to students who do their own work honestly.
• Decision letters are subject to records-retention requirements set out in SAIT’s procedures. Informally storing letters within an academic chair’s office or computer does not ensure that these records will be retained/destroyed in accordance with SAIT’s records retention requirements.

It depends on the particular circumstances, including whether this will have a positive or negative outcome for the student, how long it has been since your original decision, whether you have made the student aware of the new information you’ve learned and given them a chance to respond to it, etc.

Please contact the Office of Community Conduct to discuss this.

The “balance or probabilities” is the standard of proof used in Canadian civil law (and is a lesser standard than the “beyond all reasonable doubt” standard used in Canadian criminal law).

It means that something is more likely true than not true. For example, if you think it is more likely true that the student did commit academic misconduct than they didn’t (51% or higher likelihood), you have met the balance of probabilities for finding that academic misconduct occurred. You do not need to be totally convinced that the student cheated.  

This assumption is wrong, unfortunately. AC.3.4.3 Student Academic Conduct clearly states that unless the student contacts you with a valid excuse for not attending, you should proceed with the hearing and make your decision on the evidence available to you, even if you have no evidence at all from the student.

If the student is unhappy with your decision, they always have the right to appeal your decision.

Academic misconduct decision letters are SAIT’s official record of what happened at a hearing, the evidence presented at the hearing, your decision, the reasons for your decision and the sanctions imposed on the student (if the allegation is founded).

These templates have been designed to meet administrative law requirements for written decisions. If the student appeals your decision within SAIT or goes to a lawyer/the courts for a judicial review of your decision, the person or body reviewing your decision will base their review on what is in your letter.

Inadequate or incorrect letters expose SAIT to greater legal risk. The use of standard templates also ensures a consistent SAIT-wide approach to decisions, which again helps reduce SAIT’s exposure to legal risk.

No: SAIT is not legally required to record a hearing, and SAIT’s position is (and has always been) that administrative hearings involving students shall not be recorded either by employees or students: see paragraph 2, Schedule D, procedure AC.3.4.3 Student Academic Conduct.

Recording a hearing also raises many difficult procedural challenges for SAIT, including properly managing retention/destruction of the recording in accordance with records management procedures, making the recording available to students without being able to control a student’s subsequent use/editing etc. of the recording, etc.

Yes. You will make your decision looking at all the evidence before you, which may or may not include independent proof (and this is true of many legal cases, where it often comes down to one person’s word against another person’s word).

As the decision-maker, you will base your decision on all the facts you have, on your assessment of how credible (or believable) each of the parties and their stories are, and on whether you think on the balance of probabilities (see question 5!) that the student committed academic misconduct.

The Office of Community Conduct is responsible for managing these types of complicated situations and will, in discussion with you, determine the best way for SAIT to approach this situation. Please contact the OCC at student.conduct@sait.ca.