Core academic requirements

Bona Fide Academic Requirements (BFARs) are the core academic requirements a graduate student must acquire in order to gain, and demonstrate acquisition of, essential knowledge and skills.

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All Bona Fide Academic Requirements

Students must meet requirements as outlined in both BFARs and Supplementary Regulation documents as approved by Senate. Students must also meet additional requirements that may be specified for their program.

Unless otherwise indicated, students may elect to complete any or all of the following requirements with or without appropriate and authorized assistive technology or aids. Students must consult Student Accessibility Services (SAS) regarding authorization for these procedures.

BFAR statement Taught Assessed
Student must successfully complete a co-operative experience or practicum, if required by their program.   GRAD 7030
Student must successfully complete a comprehensive exam, project, studio exhibition, or equivalent, as required by their program and determined by the assigned examining committee.

GRAD 7010
GRAD 7050
GRAD 7090
GRAD 7200

 GRAD 7010
GRAD 7050
GRAD 7090
GRAD 7200
Examining/Adjudication
Committee
Student must produce a recorded/published thesis commensurate with degree being sought. Master's GRAD 7000
Doctoral GRAD 8000

GRAD 7000
GRAD 8000
Student must successfully defend their thesis (where required), as determined by the assigned examining committee, in real-time. Master's GRAD 7000
Doctoral GRAD 8000

GRAD 7000
GRAD 8000
Student in doctoral program must complete a candidacy exam (or equivalent) as required by their program and determined by the assigned examining committee. GRAD 8010 GRAD 8010
Student must demonstrate knowledge of the University of Manitoba’s policy on academic integrity, plagiarism, and cheating. GRAD 7500 GRAD 7500
Student must conduct research in a safe and ethical manner, referring to their respective ethics board and supervisor(s) to ensure respect is maintained for: human dignity and/or animal welfare; vulnerable persons; informed consent; justice and diversity; confidentiality and privacy; beneficence and non- maleficence in the work that they conduct. GRAD 7300 GRAD 7300
Student must complete coursework as required by their program.    

 

Additional requirements by program

If you are a student in any of the following programs of study, you must also meet the additional BFARs of those programs, as detailed in the PDFs here. 

Required tutorials: GRAD 7500 and GRAD 7300

All graduate students and pre-master's students must complete two online tutorials – GRAD 7500 Academic Integrity and GRAD 7300 Research Integrity – as part of the Bona Fide Academic Requirements of their graduate program.

You must complete these courses even if:

  • You have already completed a similar departmental seminar course.
  • Your thesis is in the middle of distribution or you have completed the distribution.
  • A span of time of one or more terms separates one graduate degree program from another graduate degree program; for example, if you completed GRAD 7500 at the master’s level, took a break of one or more terms and were admitted to another master’s or PhD program, you must take the course again.
  • If you have taken an exceptional, parental or regular leave of absence, you must register for these courses upon return from leave if you have not already completed the course.

Visiting and occasional students are not expected to complete GRAD 7500 or GRAD 7300.

How to register for GRAD 7500 or GRAD 7300

Register for the courses in Aurora, then complete them in UM Learn. Do not register for either of these courses in more than one term.

Register in Aurora Access the course in UM Learn

  • Log in to UM Learn using your UM credentials. 
  • Under My Courses, choose either GRAD-7500 - Academic Integrity Tutorial or GRAD-7300 - Research Integrity Tutorial.

GRAD 7500 - Academic Integrity

All graduate students must complete GRAD 7500 Academic Integrity in their first term of study.

The University of Manitoba upholds a high standard of academic integrity across all faculties, departments and schools. Students must demonstrate knowledge of the university’s rules regarding academic integrity, plagiarism, and cheating. Penalties for breaching these rules can result in suspension or even expulsion from your program of study.

This is a zero (0) credit hour course that will introduce you to your basic responsibilities regarding academic integrity and to the resources designed to support you in this endeavour.

There is no enrolment fee for this course.

Course description

GRAD 7500 is an online tutorial made up of seven units. These units:

  • explore what is meant by academic integrity
  • demonstrate what is considered to be academic misconduct
  • help you identify strategies to avoid academic misconduct and achieve with integrity in and beyond the classroom
  • provide valuable resources to facilitate achieving this gold standard of scholarly conduct

Working through the course

You will complete the course online on the UM Learn learning platform.

To get the most from this learning experience, we suggest you complete one unit every three days; however, you are free to move through the course at your own pace.

You must read all of the information, watch each video, and participate in each discussion, reflection and quiz within the seven units to access and complete the final quiz. Each of the units will take approximately 45 to 60 minutes to complete.

Refer to the GRAD 7500 tutorial instructions if you run into difficulties.

Final quiz

The last component in the course is the Academic Integrity quiz. After you successfully complete the final quiz, you will receive an email within 24 hours confirming that you have successfully completed the course. 

You must achieve 95% on the final quiz to complete GRAD 7500 and pass the course. If necessary, you can take the final quiz up to five times to achieve 95%. If you do not pass the quiz after five attempts, you will be required to attend a remediation session and redo the course. The course will be designated CO (continuing) until you successfully complete the quiz and a Pass grade is submitted by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

If you do not attend remediation and redo the quiz, you will receive a grade of F/NP and may be required to withdraw from your graduate program. 

Pass grades will be loaded into Aurora within approximately three weeks of the course end date.

Technical support for course or quiz

If you experience technical difficulties at any point, please review the tutorial instructions before requesting support. If you still have questions, please contact graduate.communications@umanitoba.ca and include your name, course registration term and student number. 

GRAD 7300 – Research Integrity

The University of Manitoba is committed to maintaining the highest standards of quality, thoroughness and integrity in all aspects of research. In this course you will have an opportunity to learn the principles and professional responsibilities of what doing good research implies.

Course overview

GRAD 7300 Research Integrity is a zero (0) credit-hour interactive online course that is accessed through UM Learn. As a Bona Fide Academic Requirement (BFAR), GRAD 7300 is mandatory for all graduate students at the University of Manitoba. It has been identified as a BFAR because research integrity applies to all disciplines and all types of academic programs. GRAD 7300 reviews key concepts of responsible professional behaviour through a wide lens of “research” which spans text-based studies, creative and scholarly activities, as well as research requiring data collection.

Effective Fall 2020, GRAD 7300 must be completed in the first year of a graduate student’s program. Completing GRAD 7300 prior to or during the application process to any ethics boards which are appropriate to the student’s research is strongly encouraged.

When do I need to take it?

If you have not already taken the Research Integrity Tutorial, you need to register in GRAD 7300 and complete the tutorial within your first year in the program.

It is beneficial for students to complete GRAD 7300 Research Integrity Tutorial prior to submitting their ethics application. However, the REB process will not be halted because GRAD 7300 has not been completed.

The completion of GRAD 7300 is an FGS Academic Guide policy and not a policy of the ethics offices.

If you have completed the TCPS 2: CORE (Course on Research Ethics) tutorial, you must still take GRAD 7300. These courses are complementary, not redundant to one another.

Course description

This interactive self-study online course offers comprehensive training in responsible research conduct and best practices. 

This course is offered by the Faculty of Graduate Studies, based on the course offered by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International).  It was developed by Epigeum, a division of Oxford University Press, through a unique process of global collaboration between world-class subject experts, partner institutions, and in-house specialists.  The course has been adapted to cover the Canadian context, as well as the specific University of Manitoba environment.

GRAD 7300 consists of 8 core modules, with 7 supplementary modules. Each Module of the course contains text, interactive learning activities, real cases, problem solving, and more. Participants work at their own pace, and are introduced to up-to-date, wide-ranging resources including institutional and federal links related to the responsibilities of a researcher.

The approximate duration of the course is 5 hours. At the end of each core module is a quiz, with 80% required to pass.  Quizzes may be attempted an unlimited number of times.

Core modules

  • Good Research Conduct
  • Irresponsible Research Practices
  • Planning Your Research
  • Managing and Recording Your Research
  • Data Selection, Analysis and Presentation
  • Scholarly Publication
  • Professional Responsibilities
  • Communication, Social Responsibility and Impact

Course completion

All students, including those in a pre-master's program, are required to complete GRAD 7300 Research Integrity Tutorial prior to applying to any ethics boards which are appropriate to the student’s research; or, no later than within the first three terms of their graduate program.

You must achieve 80% on each core module assessment to complete GRAD 7300 and pass the course. If necessary, you have unlimited attempts to achieve 80%. Failure to complete this course will result in suspension of registration privileges and a grade of F/NP being assigned to the course which may lead to being “Required to withdraw” from the graduate program.