Artificial intelligence has resulted in transformative shifts in teaching, learning, assessment, and academic integrity in higher education. In this keynote, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton urges us to move beyond detection-focused strategies to academic misconduct and explore how AI can become a catalyst for educational equity and student success while maintaining academic integrity.

Dr. Eaton argues that there can be no integrity without equity. When thoughtfully and cautiously integrated, AI tools can democratize access to learning support, particularly benefiting students with diverse learning needs, language backgrounds, and varying levels of academic preparation. Join us as Dr. Eaton unpacks her award-winning postplagiarism framework, which transforms our approach to academic integrity in the age of generative artificial intelligence. We will examine academic integrity through the lens of technological advancement, systemic barriers to student success, and advancing equity in higher education.

About Dr Sarah Eaton

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and research chair at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada, and an Honorary Associate Professor, Deakin University, Australia. She has received research awards of excellence for her scholarship on academic integrity from the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE) (2020) and the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI) (2022). Dr. Eaton has written and presented extensively on academic integrity and ethics worldwide and is regularly invited as a media guest to talk about academic misconduct.

Dr. Eaton is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. Her books include Plagiarism in Higher Education, Academic Integrity in Canada, Contract Cheating in Higher Education, and Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education. She is also editor-in-chief of the Second Handbook of Academic Integrity (2024).

Most discussions about AI in higher education focus on productivity tools or academic threats. But what if we’re missing the fundamental shift happening right in front of us? This keynote explores the emerging Human-AI-World ecosystem where artificial intelligence transitions from being used to being learned with as an equal partner.

Drawing from research in global collaborative learning and cosmogogical approaches, Dr Julie Lindsay presents a framework that reimagines the relationships between humans, AI, and the world as interconnected learning domains. Through live demonstrations and case studies from practice, attendees will discover how learners experience AI differently when positioned as dialogue partners rather than feedback generators, and how this shift enables new forms of assessment that focus on learning conversations instead of isolated outputs.

The session examines three critical relationships: Human-AI partnership through co-creation and augmented capabilities, AI-World interface through real-time global collaboration across time zones, and Human-World connection through authentic problem-solving in real contexts. Participants will explore productive tensions around agency, trust, and risk while developing ethical reflexivity as an integral practice. This is not about adding AI to existing educational structures—it’s about recognising a new learning ecosystem and becoming ecosystem architects who design environments where humans and AI grow together.