TEQSA has renewed Murdoch University’s registration as an Australian University for a period of four years until 9 June 2025.

The renewal was made under section 36 of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (TEQSA Act).

This follows TEQSA’s 2020:

• compliance assessment of Murdoch under section 59 of the TEQSA Act, and
• assessment of Murdoch’s application for renewal of registration on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS).

After assessing the University’s registration renewal application, on 9 June 2021 TEQSA concluded that Murdoch was at risk of not continuing to meet the relevant requirements of Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015.

These risks were in relation to:

• Governance (Standard 6.2.1 and Standard 6.3.2) and the extent to which:
  • Murdoch’s governing body has sufficiently managed and mitigated material risks identified in its operations
  • the Academic Council adequately identifies, mitigates and maintains oversight of material risks that impact teaching and learning quality at Murdoch.
• Course review and improvement activities (Standard 5.3.4) and the extent to which Murdoch has established systematic benchmarking of student performance data across comparable courses.

Having considered whether to include conditions on the university’s registration, TEQSA will afford Murdoch the opportunity to undertake the necessary actions to address these risks through a voluntary undertaking.

In reaching this decision, TEQSA noted that Murdoch has commissioned reviews which will assist it to identify risks and possible future non-compliance and to address them in a timely and effective manner. These actions reflect a positive commitment to continuous improvement at Murdoch.

The voluntary undertaking sets out the actions Murdoch intends to take to address most of the identified risks. It will also provide a suitable framework for Murdoch to demonstrate ongoing improvements to its corporate and academic governance arrangements and the monitoring, review and improvement of its courses.

TEQSA has made this statement in light of the general public interest in the matters covered by the assessment. This disclosure is made under s196 of the TEQSA Act.

Notes

• Statement on the outcome of the 2020 compliance assessment (9 October 2020)
• Statement on the outcome of the 2020 CRICOS assessment (9 December 2020)

TEQSA’s Higher Education Integrity Unit has commenced sharing intelligence about commercial academic cheating services with Australian higher education providers.

Today, the agency released a dataset to the sector. The data, in the form of assignments, was obtained by Australian researchers looking into the global activities of commercial academic cheating services.

The researchers worked with anti-cheating software provider Turnitin to analyse the data, identifying 2628 instances where substantially similar assignments had been submitted through the Turnitin licenses of 78 Australian education institutions between 2015 and 2019.

The Australian providers included 34 universities, 27 higher education providers, 2 non-higher-education providers and 15 other providers, with the assignments covering a broad range of disciplines.

The data also showed evidence of cheating affecting universities and educational institutions in several other countries and TEQSA is in the process of putting the necessary legal instruments in place to enable sharing the data with its international partners.

TEQSA CEO Alistair Maclean said that intelligence sharing was part of TEQSA’s multi-pronged approach to combatting commercial academic cheating services.

“TEQSA is taking both enforcement and educative approaches to prevent, detect and respond to commercial academic cheating services, which threaten the integrity of Australian higher education,” Mr Maclean said.

“New laws enacted in September 2020 give TEQSA the power to gather, store and share information about illegal cheating service operators and provides penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment or fines of up to $110,000 for providing or advertising academic cheating services.

“TEQSA’s Higher Education Integrity Unit is presently investigating a number of services – including the sources of this data - with a view to pursuing further enforcement action in the coming months.

“Our investigative and intelligence sharing activities are backed by our work with providers and academics to strengthen their ability to prevent, detect and respond to cases of commercial cheating and strengthen students’ understanding of why cheating is never the right answer.”

Australia’s anti-cheating laws target the operators of these unethical services – individual students who pay to cheat are subject to their institution’s disciplinary policies.

“Our enforcement focus continues to be the operators of these illegal and unethical websites,” Mr Maclean said.

Anti-cheating resources, including a new suite of materials for students, can be accessed via the TEQSA website, which also has information about reporting suspected illegal cheating services targeting Australian students.

Media enquiries 

Bryan Allchin, Assistant Director, Communications: comms@teqsa.gov.au, 0437 143 012

TEQSA’s Higher Education Integrity Unit has today alerted the sector to an emerging integrity risk related to online study platforms seeking to employ students for on-campus promotional activities. 

We know many Australian academics and institutions share TEQSA’s concerns that these sites may present a risk to academic integrity by promoting, enabling or supplying commercial academic cheating services (also known as contract cheating).

TEQSA is also concerned that students may unwittingly find themselves promoting online platforms that enable commercial academic cheating to their peers, and therefore risk prosecution under Australia’s anti-cheating laws.

• Advisory statement for providers
• Advice for students

TEQSA has today alerted all Australian higher education institutions to an emerging cyber security risk.

TEQSA Chief Executive Officer Alistair Maclean said researchers from the United States have provided evidence to TEQSA of instances where Australian higher education websites on the ‘edu.au’ domain appear to have been compromised by companies working on behalf of commercial cheating service operators.

“Cyber security breaches on the ‘edu.au’ domain present a risk to student interests and the reputation of Australia’s higher education sector,” Mr Maclean said.

“The researchers who informed TEQSA have identified four key types of malicious code in their scan of the ‘edu.au’ domain that serve to re-direct students to an illegal cheating service site.”

The type of malicious code identified by the researchers included:

• Search query redirect – code inserted into a provider’s website to redirect students to a cheating service website from specific URLs. 
• Content injection – embedding a link to a commercial cheating service website within a provider’s website.
• Comment injection – comments inserted to propagate or provide links to commercial cheating services in discussion forums (especially in WordPress).
• Compromised recomposition – fake scholarship/essay contests inserted into provider websites, designed to harvest original student work that the commercial cheating services then on-sell.

Mr Maclean said TEQSA had written to all registered higher education providers outlining actions they should take to protect their websites against this emerging integrity risk, and published advice for students.

“Academic integrity and cyber security are two areas of focus for TEQSA’s Higher Education Integrity Unit,” Mr Maclean said.

“We know higher education providers also take these matters seriously – and we greatly appreciate the ongoing collaboration and partnership from across the sector in responding to these risks.”

The Australian Cyber Security Centre also has information on recommended mitigation strategies for Australian organisations, including a resource aimed at assessing security vulnerabilities and applying patches.

Media enquiries 

Bryan Allchin, Assistant Director, Communications: comms@teqsa.gov.au, 0437 143 012

The latest episode of the TEQSA Talks podcast series is now available.

In this podcast, we chat with Dr Helen Gniel, the newly appointed Director of the Higher Education Integrity Unit.

Dr Gniel outlines the unit’s role, its early focus and her interest in integrity issues.

• Listen to the podcast
• Other TEQSA podcasts and webinars

The recording of the latest instalment in our Quality Assurance Webinar Series is now online.

In this webinar, TEQSA Chief Commissioner, Professor Nick Saunders discusses the ‘Path to Self-Accreditation with Professor Kevin Petrie, Vice Chancellor, Avondale University College and Professor Jane Fernandez, Provost, Excelsia College, Adjunct Professor, Avondale University College and Founding Convenor, HEPP-QN.

The panellists discuss approaches to achieving self-accreditation, benefits that can be realised and answer questions from attendees.

The Quality Assurance Webinar Series is a new TEQSA initiative for 2021 to share higher education quality assurance and regulatory information with TEQSA Experts and quality managers within providers, industry and professional accrediting bodies.

This is the second instalment in the series. Changes to the format were implemented for this webinar to reduce the impact of bandwidth restrictions on attendees, following feedback from the previous webinar. 

If you have further questions about topics raised in this webinar, please email onlinelearning@teqsa.gov.au. We will then publish the answers on our website.

• View the webinar video recording (opens in YouTube)

TEQSA is seeking sector feedback on the beta-release of a new Guidance Note on Admissions (coursework).

The beta-release of this guidance note includes information about how providers can ensure admissions policies, practices and standards align with the Higher Education Standards Framework.

Like all TEQSA guidance notes, this resource is intended to provide guidance only. The final version will not be a definitive or binding document.

You can provide feedback until 31 March 2021 by emailing standards@teqsa.gov.au.

• View the guidance note and make a submission

TEQSA and English Australia have renewed their Memorandum of Understanding. 

English Australia is the peak body for the English language sector of international education in Australia, representing more than 120 colleges.

TEQSA Chief Executive Officer, Alistair Maclean, said the renewed Memorandum of Understanding will support ongoing collaboration between the two organisations.

“TEQSA and English Australia have been working together for several years to share information to protect the quality of higher education,” Mr Maclean said.

“I’m pleased to renew this agreement given the importance of continued collaboration between TEQSA and the sector as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact.”

English Australia Chief Executive Officer, Brett Blacker, also welcomed the signing of the renewed agreement.

“This renewed MoU will support the ongoing collaboration between TEQSA and English Australia, supporting our members to share information and continue contributing to regulatory discussions,” Mr Blacker said.