How Phishing Scams Exploit Academic Integrity Fears

September 3, 2026

An Instagram post caught my attention this week. A University of Alberta student described being phished through a fake accusation of academic misconduct.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Dcl1uJnubqD

The scam did not rely on advanced technology. It did not require artificial intelligence or an elaborate hacking scheme. The scammer needed one thing: a strong feeling, delivered before the target had time to think.

That should concern anyone who works with students.

The Emotional Attack

Cybersecurity training focuses on information, such as: 

  • Do not click unfamiliar links.
  • Check the sender’s address. 
  • Watch for unexpected attachments. 

These are important tips that everyone should follow.

There’s a second part, that is just as important to pay attention to: how a person feels in the moment they read a message. As Guy Curtis and Amanda White point out in their recent research article, an allegation of academic misconduct can cause students distress and anxiety.

Fear produces urgency. Sympathy produces a desire to help. Excitement makes a person overlook details they would otherwise catch. Embarrassment stops a person from asking a friend or colleague whether something looks right.

None of this requires a scammer to outsmart the target’s technical knowledge. The scammer only needs to get past the target’s pause button, and feelings do that work quickly.

Once a person thinks, ‘I need to do this right now,’ the scammer has already won half the exchange.

Why This Matters for Students

Consider the situations a university student faces in a given semester. Tuition deadlines. Financial aid. Scholarships. Housing applications. Job offers. Academic standing. A friend who needs help fast. None of these topics is suspicious on its own. Students encounter them constantly, which is exactly why a scammer can use any one of them as a disguise.

A student who reads a message claiming that something important is at risk rarely stops to ask, ‘Is this a phishing attempt?’ The more immediate question is, ‘How do I fix this?’ That question is the trap. The scammer counts on the student staying inside it.

Urgency as a Weapon

Fraudsters have relied on manufactured urgency for a long time. Consider these common tactics: You have only a few minutes. Your account will close. Pay immediately. A friend needs help right now.

Urgency changes the question a person asks. Instead of ‘Is this legitimate?’, the target asks ‘How fast can I resolve this?’ The scammer controls that shift, and once it happens, careful judgment tends to disappear.

Students cannot reasonably treat every email or text with suspicion. That approach is not realistic, and it is not sustainable. What do to instead: when a message produces a strong emotional reaction, pause. The stronger the reaction, the more the pause matters.

Where Colleges and Universities Fit In

This is not only a student problem. Universities invest in cybersecurity training. Students learn about phishing, password hygiene, and multifactor authentication. That training is necessary, but it does not address scams built specifically to manipulate emotion.

When we teach cybersecuirty, we must include an emotional literacy component. Students should learn to notice when a message is working to make them afraid, guilty, excited, embarrassed, or suddenly responsible for solving an urgent problem. Orientation sessions, residence programming, and digital literacy initiatives are reasonable places to build this in.

The guidance itself is simple. If a message makes a person feel they must act immediately, they should stop. Then they should verify the request through a channel they already know is legitimate, not the phone number or link the message provides. The university website, the student portal, the bank, the employer: these sources exist independently of the suspicious message, and they are the ones worth contacting.

One extra minute, spent verifying, separates a student who avoids a scam from a student who becomes its next case study.

Rethinking Phishing Awareness

Fraud prevention cannot stop at spotting suspicious technology. The scammers doing the most damage right now often look ordinary. Scams arrive through platforms students already trust and tell a believable story. They contain no typos, no broken links, nothing that trips a spam filter.

The strength of the scam comes from something else entirely: an accurate read of how people behave under emotional pressure.

When considering cybersecurity we must account for psychology, as well as technology. Students do not need a degree in information security to protect themselves. They need the instinct to notice the feeling first and pay attention to it before acting. Panic, urgency, fear, excitement, guilt, an overwhelming pull to help someone right away. Any of these is reason enough to stop.

Step back. Verify independently. Then decide.

The scam rarely starts the moment someone clicks a link. It starts the moment a message succeeds in making a person react before they think.

Closing Remarks

An allegation of academic misconduct can cause students to panic and feel all kinds of emotions, including anxiety and terror. Those of us who work in education need to attend as much to our students’ well being, dignity and humanity as much as holding them accountable for their behaviour. 

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer.

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How Not to Respond: 5 Mistakes Professors Make After Misconduct Rulings

May 28, 2025

Academic misconduct cases can leave professors feeling frustrated, especially when outcomes don’t align with their expectations. These emotions are understandable and how faculty respond to disappointing rulings can impact their professional standing; relationships with colleagues and students; and future effectiveness in addressing misconduct.

Here are five common mistakes professors make when they disagree with academic misconduct decisions—and better approaches to consider.

1. Venting to Students About the Decision

The Mistake: Discussing the case details or expressing frustration about the ruling with other students, either in class or informal settings.

Why It Backfires: This behavior undermines institutional authority, creates an uncomfortable environment for students, and may violate confidentiality requirements. Students lose confidence in the system and may question whether they’ll receive fair treatment.

Better Approach: Process your concerns through appropriate channels. If you need to discuss the case, speak with department chairs, ombudspersons, or trusted colleagues who understand confidentiality requirements.

2. Making Public Complaints on Social Media or Forums

The Mistake: Posting about the case on social media, academic forums, or other public platforms, even when avoiding specific names.

Why It Backfires: Public complaints damage professional relationships and institutional reputation. Even anonymous posts can often be traced back to their authors. This approach also models poor conflict resolution for students and colleagues.

Better Approach: Use internal grievance procedures or professional development opportunities to address systemic concerns. Focus energy on improving processes rather than criticizing past decisions.

3. Refusing to Participate in Future Misconduct Proceedings

The Mistake: Declining to serve on academic integrity committees or refusing to report suspected misconduct because of disagreement with previous outcomes.

Why It Backfires: Withdrawal from the process eliminates your voice from future decisions and reduces the system’s effectiveness. This stance also shifts additional burden to colleagues who continue participating.

Better Approach: Stay engaged while working to improve the system. Use your experience to advocate for clearer guidelines, better training, or procedural improvements that address your concerns.

4. Treating the Student Differently in Future Interactions

The Mistake: Allowing disappointment about the ruling to affect how you interact with the student in subsequent courses, recommendations, or professional settings.

Why It Backfires: This behavior constitutes unprofessional conduct and potential retaliation. It undermines the educational mission and creates legal risks for both you and the institution.

Better Approach: Maintain professional boundaries and treat all students equitably. If you find it difficult to interact objectively with the student, consider recusing yourself from situations where bias might affect your judgment.

5. Bypassing Established Processes

The Mistake: Going directly to senior administrators, board members, or external parties without following institutional procedures for investigations, appeals, or grievances.

Why It Backfires: Skipping proper channels damages relationships with immediate supervisors and colleagues. It also reduces the likelihood that your concerns will receive serious consideration, as decision-makers prefer to see that established processes were followed.

Better Approach: Work through designated channels first. Document your concerns clearly and present them through official appeal mechanisms. If these prove insufficient, seek guidance from faculty governance bodies or professional organizations.

Moving Forward Constructively

Disagreement with academic misconduct decisions stems from genuine concern for educational standards and fairness. Channel this concern into productive action by focusing on prevention, process improvement, and professional development rather than relitigating past cases.

Consider these constructive alternatives: participate in policy review committees, mentor colleagues on documentation practices, advocate for faculty training on academic integrity, or contribute to scholarship on effective misconduct prevention.

The goal is not to eliminate disagreement with misconduct decisions—different perspectives strengthen academic integrity systems. The goal is to express disagreement in ways that improve outcomes for everyone involved while maintaining the professional standards that serve our educational mission.

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer.

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Dignity: A Foundation of Academic Integrity

April 8, 2025

In our pursuit of knowledge, we often focus on policies, consequences, and detection systems. Yet at the heart of academic integrity lies something fundamental: human dignity.

When we produce original work, we honor our intellectual journey and the dignity of those whose ideas we build upon. Attribution acknowledges that knowledge creation is a collaborative endeavor spanning generations.

Academic integrity shouldn’t be about avoiding punishment, but rather, about recognizing the worth in honest intellectual exchange. It’s understanding that shortcuts diminish our growth and the trust that sustains scholarly communities.

As educators and learners, we can frame integrity less as compliance and more as respect – for ourselves, peers, and institutions that facilitate collective wisdom. When we approach academic work with dignity as our compass, integrity follows.

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer. 

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Time Management Tips and Goal-Setting for Graduate Students

January 6, 2025

This post is for my grad students, but may be of interest to others, too.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve started each year by setting goals for the year and sometimes even for multiple years. Call it a quest for independence, a desire for self-determination, or a way to keep myself from getting down in the dumps as the shininess of a new year wears off and the drudgery of February descends.

SMART Goals

Some years ago I learned about SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. That has been a helpful framework for me, but I have also struggled to keep my thinking flexible when setting goals. Having a framework and being flexible with that framework, rather than adhering to it strictly, is ongoing goal.

Write Down the Goals

I write down my goals and I also keep To Do Lists. This helps me to keep track of what goals I set and their due dates. Now, due dates get shifted sometimes, but I am more likely to meet my goals and complete the tasks that help me achieve them if I give myself a deadline.

Some of my Favourite Tools

An alumnus from our school of education introduced me to Magic To Do Goblin Tools a while back. It’s an AI app that helps break down a big task into smaller tasks.

I also use Google sheets to create To Do lists. I used to use a word processor for this, but over time I have migrated to spreadsheets because I like being able to sort the columns by different categories such as due dates, tasks completed, and so on. One reason I use Google sheets is that I like being able to access it from any device, anywhere in the world.

Back during the pandemic, Phill Dawson and I were working on our respective books. He was writing Defending Assessment in a Digital World and I was writing Plagiarism in Higher Education: Tackling Tough Topics in Academic Integrity. He posted on Twitter that he was using WriteTrack ( to help him complete the book. I checked it out and immediately signed up. This has been one of the single most helpful tools to help me complete large writing projects that have a target word count. I recommend it to students who are writing a thesis or anyone tackling a big writing project.

Microgoals

For me, one of the things that I have found helpful, is to break down big goals into smaller ones. I break the smaller ones in to even smaller ones. I keep going until I have micro goals, which for me are small things I can do in half an hour or less.

My preference is to have big chunks of time (at least three or four hours of uninterrupted time) to work on projects. Most days I do not have that luxury, which is frustrating, but also outside of my control. Instead, I try to do micro tasks throughout the day that require less focus, so that when the opportunity comes to have an hour or more to work on a task, I am less preoccupied with other chores or deliverables that need to get done. Five minutes to fill out and submit a form for a graduate student’s progress. Ten minutes to load the dishwasher. Fifteen minutes to answer some e-mails.

Some days I do not have time to read an entire article or an entire chapter of a book, so my microgoal is to simply open the .pdf, scan the title and read the abstract. I might add the article to my EndNote library. That’s another micro task. Even if I cannot complete an entire task, I try to make some progress, however small it may seem.

Some microtasks are things that I don’t particularly enjoy doing, but they are responsibilities and I just need to get them done. Other micro tasks are things I really wish I could spend more time on. Either way, doing something rather than nothing means we are making progress.

Monitor Your Progress and Celebrate Small Wins

The point is to find tools that work for us to declare and then monitor our progress. Making some progress is better than making no progress at all. Things sometimes (often?) take longer than we anticipate, but the goal might still be worth working towards. Monitoring progress and celebrating the small steps is an important part of the process. We do what we can, and we can feel proud of that.

Expect the Unexpected

One of the things I struggle with is being interrupted. If I am focused on a task and I am interrupted, sometimes it can feel like the whole day is ruined. One of my daily challenges is dealing with abrupt or unexpected changes that can take me away from something I am working on. My reality is that most days are full of interruptions. It’s one of the reasons I often get up early to work on important projects. I often say that by the time 09:00 a.m. rolls around, I can’t get any more work done for the day. I say it in jest, but there’s a kernel of truth in there.

I have learned to expect the unexpected and assume that my day will include interruptions that I have no control over. For me this means bracing myself for incidents, e-mails, or the cat throwing up a hair ball that will demand my attention and throw me off balance. It’s not that learning to expect the unexpected means that I am suddenly able to regain my balance, but rather that I accept that I may be in a sustained state of internal imbalance due to factors outside my control. I practice breathing and just carrying on… however off kilter I may feel.

Anticipate the Need for Extra Time

One of the reasons I like to think I’m good at time management is because I often allow extra time for tasks. I block travel time in my calendar to get to work, for example. I tend to allow more time than I might need on an average day, so that if traffic is heavy or if there’s an accident on the road, I have built some buffer into my schedule. On days when I arrive to work a little bit early, I can spend a bit of extra time getting ready for my meetings or chatting with people I run into along the way.

For me, anticipating I may need more time than a task might require, helps me cope when unexpected things happen. It also helps me to limit the number of tasks I expect of myself in a day. Because I tend to over-schedule and over-plan, limiting the number of tasks in a day can actually be helpful for me.

Release the Day

Set daily goals that you can realistically achieve. If you do not achieve them by the end of the day, then release them… At the end of the day, say to yourself, “Today is over and I have done my best. Tomorrow is a new day.” Set concrete and small goals for the next day and when you wake up, review your list. Look at it throughout the day. Do what you can. Then, at the end of that day, accept that the day is over, you have done your best, release what you did not accomplish and if possible, move those goals to the next day.

I have too many things on my lists for me to accomplish them all. When I was younger, I would get very upset with myself for not achieving everything on my To Do List. One of the most powerful techniques I learned was to ‘release the day’. At the end of every day, I review what tasks I accomplished. (Sometimes I even book in relaxation as a goal and that one is always a challenge for me.)

At the end of the day, say to yourself, “Today is over and I have done my best. Tomorrow is a new day.” in my mind, I close the day and release myself from any guilt, sadness, or anger that I have not made as much progress on my To Do List. There are a limited number of hours in each day and I do what I can. 

I forgive myself for whatever didn’t get done and give myself permission to start tomorrow as a new day. Each day is its own little time capsule. Success happens from doing many small tasks over time to achieve a big goal.

Limit the Worrying

This can be easier said than done. For me at least, worry is like an evil monster that can block me from making any progress at all. Worrying can be normal, but worrying too much can prohibit us from making progress on small things we can do today. By anticipating the unexpected, anticipating the need for extra time, and releasing the day, I tend to worry less.

Little Steps Towards Big Goals

I often tell graduate students that I work with that we complete our academic programs as a result of doing many little tasks every day that help propel us towards their overall goal. Of course, there are big program milestones: completion of individual courses, followed by completion of all the required courses, writing the thesis proposal, the candidacy exam, the final oral defence, and then graduation. These big milestones are way points along the journey. Each and every step along the path matters though. No matter how small, even one step helps get us closer to our goals.

Ask for (and Accept) Help

Asking for help can be a challenge. I am not always great at asking for help, but whether I like it or not, there are a lot of things I am either not good at or just cannot do for one reason or another. As a supervisor, there are certain things I can help my students with, but there are other things that I can’t do. For example, if a student is experiencing high levels of anxiety, demand avoidance or task initiation paralysis, I can listen and be supportive, and I may recommend that the students seek additional support from a qualified therapist or counsellor. I am aware that my role as an academic supervisor has some constraints and I am not qualified to serve as a proxy therapist for a student who needs more support than I can give. In these cases, I see my role is one of helping students recognize that they may need extra support and provide referrals to the Student Wellness centre, were further diagnostics or support can be provided.

I might share that when I was a graduate student, I myself got help from counsellors along my journey who helped me manage my anxiety, sleep better, and helped me achieve my goals. Sometimes that disclosure helps and sometimes it doesn’t. If a student is resistant to seeking help, I recognize that ultimately, they own that resistance, not me. Everyone’s journey is personal.

Concluding remarks

A new year brings an opportunity for a re-set. We can acknowledge and celebrate what we achieved in the previous year as we look ahead to new challenges, new experiences, highs, lows, and everything in between. It’s not that the journey is always fun, because it’s not. The journey itself is difficult, with many twists and turns, with unexpected obstacles along the way. The point is to keep working towards our goals, little by little, while still taking time to rest and rejuvenate, so we have the energy to keep going.

Related posts (ones that might of special interest to students)

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This blog has had over 3.7 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please ‘Like’ it using the button below or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer. 

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12 Tips to incorporate blogging into your classes

August 2, 2012

In a recent Master’s of Education course I taught at the University of Calgary, blogging was a required assignment for the students. The program coordinator (my boss) urged me to have the students blog as part of their course. She let me know that the students were enrolled in a graduate certificate program and that the course I was teaching was the first course of their certificate. She said that the certificate had been set up so that students would blog throughout their entire learning experience, as part of every course in their certificate.

The course I taught was on incorporating technology into educational practice. As an avid blogger myself, I was excited by the prospect of incorporating blogging into my teaching practice.

Most of the students were teachers themselves and some of them were technology leaders in their schools, but only one had her own blog.

After having incorporated “blogging for learning” into my teaching practice, here is what I learned:

1. Recommend a blogging service.

We (meaning the course coordinator and I) did not restrict what blogging service the students chose, but we recommended a few (including WordPress and Blogger). We recommended free sites and suggested that students not pay to register their own domain (at least, not to start).

 2. Show students the nuts and bolts of how to set up a blog.

I spent approximately 30 minutes in one class, showing students the “behind the scenes” of my own WordPress blog. Using an LCD projector, hooked up to a computer with an Internet connection, I took my students on a virtual tour of my own WordPress dashboard. I showed them how to choose a theme, write a post and then publish that post. They appreciated the demo and it gave them confidence to get started.

3. Give them time to set up their blog.

One student reported that it took her two hours to set up her blog. This included familiarizing herself with the dashboard, selecting a theme and figuring out how to post. Even for those who are into technology, setting up your first blog can seem overwhelming until you get the hang of it. The students needed dedicated time to figure out the practicalities of their blog.Sarah Elaine Eaton, speaker, presenter, keynote, technology, social media, Calgary, Canada, educator, education, professional development

 4. Link the blogs to the course content.

Emphasize that the topics that students post on need to relate to the cours content. Topics covered in class or questions raised during class were some suggestions. At times, I would encourage students to think about their blog by saying in class, “That is good fodder for a blog post.” This helped them to think about what a learning blog is and what topics make for good blog posts.

5. Assign a certain number of postings.

In our course, students had to publish a minimum of four posts throughout their course. Their instructions included “keeping up-to-date with postings throughout the course”. About half of the students were able to do this. The other half waited until the end of the course and then published three or four postings at once. Many students admitted to having their blogs in draft form, but did not feel ready to publish them.

6. Assign a minimum number of words for each post.

In our course, students’ blog posts had to be a minimum of 200 words. This meant that writing was part of the assignment. It was not enough to post a graphic or a video without a reflective response.

7. Encourage multimedia.

In addition to the 200 words, I encouraged students to post videos, graphics, Wordles and other multimedia to their blogs. Since our course was about incorporating technology into inquiry-based learning, this was appropriate. Some students were able to incorporate media quite easily, but others struggled with this.

8. Encourage students to include a blogroll.

Students were expected to read and comment on each other’s posts. To help them with this, we had each student post their blog address in our online class Blackboard site. I encouraged each student to include a blog roll on their own blogs, so they could easily access each other’s blogs. Not all the students figured out how to do this, but most of them were able to set up a blog roll. This helped them to keep track of each other’s blogs more easily.

9. Include commenting and interactivity as part of the assignment.

Part of the learning task included students commenting on their classmates’ blog posts at least twice. These comments counted as part of their grade for the assignment. Students were asked to post thoughtful and reflective comments that went beyond “Good post!” or “I liked this”. This proved to be problematic at the beginning, as some students had difficulty figuring out how to approve comments. Until they did, their peers’ comments did not show up on their blogs. Once the students figured out how to approve each other’s comments, this went much more smoothly.

10. Talk about blogging in class.

Not only did I highlight topics or questions that would make good blog posts, we also talked about the process of blogging in class. One student was excited to announce that someone from another country had read her blog post and “liked” it, using the “like” button in WordPress. Until then, she had no idea that anyone outside our class might read her blog posts. Knowing that another educator, whom she did not know, read and liked her post gave her great inspiration to keep writing. Her story also inspired the other students to think about how blogging can help them connect with others on a broader scale.

11. Differentiate between a personal and professional / educational blog.

Not only did I provide written instructions on the course outline, I also supported the written instructions with an in-class demo and ongoing discussions in class about blogging and how to use blogging for learning or professional teaching purposes. A couple of students had trouble figuring out how blogging for class differed from personal blogging. We talked about how a personal blog might include more family photos, recipes or other personal information, while a professional learning blog would include topics more focussed on work and our professional lives.

12. Help students find their blogging voice.

I made it clear that since the students were also professionals and teachers, that their blog was an extension of their professional selves. Some students initially found this a bit diffiult and said that they did not know what tone of voice to use in their blog. We had a conversation about language register and how a learning blog was one step down from a formal research paper and probably one step up from very informal conversations. By the end of the course, most of the students had found a happy medium.

Overall, the process of working with these adult learners (who are also teachers) in helping them learn how to blog was both challenging and rewarding. In the beginning, I had assumed (incorrectly) that since they had high levels of technology literacy and many of them teach tech as part of their professional practice, that they would find it easy to blog. In reality, it took time for them to learn the nuts and bolts of how to blog, to learn what topics made for a good blog post and to learn how to find their voice as a blogger.

In the end, they did extremely well with their blogs and I have subscribed to all of them. I am excited to see how they progress with blogging in thier next course.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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