Your responsibilities
Deakin's values are central to our University’s culture. We aspire to be brave, dynamic, sustainable, ethical, excellent and inclusive.
When you accept your offer and enrol in your course at Deakin, you agree through the terms and conditions of enrolment to uphold these values and comply with our legislation, policies and procedures.
This means you must familiarise yourself with our Student Code of Conduct and understand your rights and responsibilities. It's important that you also understand the concepts of respect, academic integrity and academic progress.
The Student Code of Conduct
The Student Code of Conduct outlines what’s expected of you, both in terms of your academic work and the way you treat other people and their property. The outcomes for breaching our expected standards of behaviour can be very serious, up to and including expulsion.
We encourage you to read the Student Code of Conduct so you understand the behaviours you must demonstrate. It also outlines how to deal with or report behaviour you might witness or experience from others, such as language that is disrespectful, that doesn’t adhere to the Code of Conduct.
Read the Student Code of Conduct
If you witness or experience any behaviour that is not aligned with the Code of Conduct, you can have an informal conversation with the Student Conduct team before choosing to make a more formal report of student misconduct.
Our culture of respect
We are committed to ensuring that you experience a respectful, safe and inclusive learning environment at Deakin.
We welcome everyone to Deakin: we recognise and value the rich diversity of our students, including members of our community from different cultures and backgrounds, with different religious beliefs, and who are LGBTIQA+ or questioning their gender or sexuality.
We trust you to demonstrate respectful behaviour on campus, online and out in the world.
You can contribute to this positive culture by completing our Respect at Deakin module which will help you navigate your personal and professional relationships at Deakin and in your future career. You’ll also find some practical suggestions of what you could do if you see someone being disrespectful or abusive towards another person.
Access the Respect at Deakin module
Academic integrity
One of the most important concepts to understand as a new student is academic integrity.
Acting with academic integrity means producing and submitting assessments in an honest and fair way, acting and communicating ethically, and showing respect for the work of others.
It’s a very serious offence to submit work that is not your own. Plagiarism and collusion are not acceptable and can result in exclusion/expulsion from your course and from Deakin. Cheating at university can have lifelong consequences for your degree and future career.
To demonstrate academic integrity, you must always submit your own work, sit your own tests and do your own final assessments (including examinations). You must also acknowledge other people’s work in your assessments, never engage in contract cheating, and use genAI tools such as ChatGPT according to our guidelines.
A compulsory Academic Integrity module will appear for you in DeakinSync that will outline these concepts in more detail and empower you with the knowledge you need to complete your studies properly.
Read more on the Academic Integrity webpage
Academic progress
All students must maintain good academic progress to move through their degree toward graduation. If you start falling behind, not meeting the requirements of your assessments or failing to pass your units, there are several potential consequences.
- You may have restrictions put on your enrolment or be excluded from study, which means you won’t be permitted to continue or complete your course.
- If you are a domestic student and have a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP), or you use HECS-HELP or FEE-HELP, you may no longer be eligible for your loan. This is so you don’t incur ongoing fees that you’ll have to repay for units you haven’t completed.
- If you’re an international student, your visa may be affected.
To maintain sufficient academic progress, you must successfully pass at least 50 percent of your units for the duration of your course. Incomplete courses include those that you fail, as well as any you drop after census date.
To ensure you make adequate academic progress, it is crucial to make correct unit selections before classes begin and receive feedback from Student Central on your unit selections and study load, as well as get study assistance as soon as you feel you need it (don’t leave it until late in the study period).
If you’re finding it hard to keep up or you need help with aspects of your course, talk to your Unit Chair or contact Student Central to prevent any issues with your academic progress.