Nominated by Hope Power, teaching & learning librarian, Simon Fraser University
The BCcampus Award for Excellence in Open Education celebrates outstanding contributions to the open education movement in British Columbia. This March, we are pleased to recognize Dr. Joel Heng Hartse of Simon Fraser University for his work on editing and publishing Unveiling Academic Integrity: Case Studies of Real-World Academic Misconduct via the B.C./Yukon Open Authoring Platform. This book was collaboratively developed with students from Education 388, a special topics course on perspectives on academic integrity. Student authors worked in teams to research and write ten case studies on academic integrity violations at various educational levels. This collection is a valuable resource for pre- or in-service teachers, academic integrity practitioners, and other educational professionals.
Joel has been an open scholarship practitioner since the beginning of his time at SFU. In 2015–2016, he was the recipient of a scholarly digitization grant from SFU Library, which was used to digitize and openly share the archives of the scholarly journal currently known as Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie (formerly known as Technostyle).
In 2023, Joel published TL;DR: A Very Brief Guide to Reading and Writing in University with the On Campus imprint of UBC Press, which publishes resources relevant to current university students via a hybrid model. While print copies of the book are available in bookstores across Canada, the book is also offered as a free PDF download, and has been freely downloaded thousands of times by students and writing instructors around the world.
In 2024, Joel engaged in several OER publishing projects related to academic integrity. He contributed the chapter “Writing with Help: What Is and Isn’t OK” to Anita Chaudhuri’s openly licensed edited volume Discipline-based Approaches to Academic Integrity. Later that year, Joel and 50 undergraduate students from EDUC 388 released Unveiling Academic Integrity: Case Studies of Real-World Academic Misconduct via the B.C./Yukon Open Authoring Platform.
According to student Elaine Ngo, “The publishing project was a meaningful opportunity for me to have, as I was able to have my work published as an undergraduate. In terms of the contents of the resource itself, it posed as an eye-opening experience, as many of these cases contained in-depth analyses and insights that some would fail to notice. These case studies were overall very interesting to learn and read about, and it is so amazing to be able to reflect on the experience of contributing to this project.”
In 2025, Joel and Elaine sat together on an SFU Open Education Week Community Panel. Appearing alongside other open education practitioners at the institution, Joel and Elaine talked about their experience with working on Unveiling Academic Integrity. Joel expressed how he enjoyed acting as an editor for his students on this open pedagogy project, and Elaine shared the significance of working on a renewable assignment that future students could benefit from.
“From my experience, the way Dr. Heng Hartse connects with students and interacts with them is truly unique and shows that he cares a lot about the success of his students. He would schedule one-on-one meetings to help students and give them feedback on their work. He would have meaningful conversations with every individual in the class, and, more importantly, his lectures were very entertaining, which gave me an unforgettable learning experience. While at Simon Fraser University, I ranked Dr. Heng Hartse as one of the best professors I’ve had. Not only did I have blast in his classes, I also was allowed to work with him and other students on publishing the new academic piece, Unveiling Academic Integrity: Case Studies of Real-World Academic Misconduct.”
—Ishaan Basanti, student, Simon Fraser University
Relevant Links