1st Place at the All-Ukrainian Student Hackathon on Academic Integrity

On October 30, in Ivano-Frankivsk, an intensive Student Hackathon took place as part of the All-Ukrainian Student Congress «Academic Integrity: A New Perspective on Education», organized at King Danylo University with the support of the Public Union «Ukrainian Student League». Daria Tonkykh, a 3rd-year bachelor’s student majoring in «Secondary Education (Mathematics)» at the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics, Computer and Technological Education of BDPU, won an honorable 1st place as part of her team.

The intellectual competition brought together 36 participants from various higher education institutions across Ukraine, divided into 6 teams of 6 members each. Daria worked as part of the «Svidomi» team. According to the hackathon format, the work took place in a dynamic rotation mode: every 10 minutes, teams moved clockwise to the next table. During this time, participants had to analyze the next problem situation, review the groundwork of previous teams, and supplement it with their own reasoned proposals or offer a fundamentally new approach.

In total, the students worked through 6 sharp practical cases modeling real ethical dilemmas in the educational process. Among the discussed situations were:

• Teacher’s «Help»: a teacher hints to students the day before the exam about which exact questions will be on the test, but does so selectively — only for a «favorite» group or an individual student;
• «One Does It for All»: during a group project, only one student does all the work independently, while other team members remain uninvolved, yet everyone receives the same grade in the end;
• «Self-Plagiarism»: a student submits the same written paper for two different academic subjects because the chosen topic fits the requirements of both courses.

Each educational dilemma had to be analyzed comprehensively from four perspectives: how the student should act and correct the situation, how the teacher should respond to the violation, what preventive mechanisms the university should implement (ranging from updating educational programs and assessment methods to awareness-raising activities), and what joint solution would be the most fair. A separate task was to select and justify the optimal type of problem resolution: punitive (sanctions for violations), educational (training and prevention), compromise (responsibility and the opportunity for correction), or innovative (an unorthodox approach).

Based on expert evaluation of the teamwork, the «Svidomi» team proposed the deepest systemic solutions and won the victory. During the announcement of the results, the organizers specially noted the high engagement of the two most active female team members, including BDPU representative Daria Tonkykh, who set the pace of the discussion and generated key ideas at each stage of rotation. The hackathon winners received nominal certificates certifying a 25% discount on tuition for Master’s programs at King Danylo University, branded merchandise, and valuable gifts from the event’s partners, including power banks.

Participation in this format allowed participants to look at academic integrity not as a dry list of rules and prohibitions, but as a living process of interaction where every participant – from student to administration – shapes a culture of trust and educational quality.

Based on materials provided by Daria Tonkykh,
3rd-year student majoring in «Secondary Education (Mathematics)»