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Legal · Academic Integrity · Sourcing

Academic Integrity Policy

This page sets out the academic integrity policy of the BMO and UKMT Pathway Guide. It covers our sourcing standards, the verification process applied before any fact reaches publication, our corrections procedure, and the boundary between editorial coverage and the official UKMT and BMO Subtrust positions. The policy applies uniformly across all content on the site.

Effective date: 24 May 2026 · Last reviewed: 24 May 2026

01.

Primary Sources We Cross-Reference

Every factual claim on the site — competition dates, problem counts, eligibility rules, marking thresholds, IMO team results, alumni biographical details — is cross-referenced against the following primary sources before publication:

  • BMO Subtrust site at bmos.ukmt.org.uk — primary source for BMO Round 1 and Round 2 format, dates, eligibility, past papers, results, and the Trinity Camp invitation list.
  • UKMT competitions site at ukmt.org.uk — primary source for the Challenge papers (Primary Kangaroo, JMC, IMC, SMC), the Kangaroo rounds, and the Junior and Intermediate Olympiads.
  • International Mathematical Olympiad official results at imo-official.org — primary source for UK IMO team rosters, medal results, and historical performance data.
  • UK Charity Commission register for UKMT’s constitutional and financial documents (charity number, annual return, board composition).

Where sources disagree on a factual detail, the discrepancy is noted in the body of the relevant page rather than silently resolved.

02.

The Verification Process

Every page on the site passes through a three-step verification process before publication:

  • Drafting: the editorial team drafts the page with explicit primary-source references for every factual claim. References are recorded in the editorial workflow but not always displayed inline on the published page (we use editorial linking and the standard “verified against UKMT” disclaimer rather than footnote citations, to preserve readability for the parent and student audience).
  • Cross-reference: a second editor cross-references every factual claim against the source records before approval. Where a claim cannot be verified, it is removed or replaced with a clearly labelled estimate (“approximately”, “typically”, “in most years”).
  • Publication: the page is published with a “last reviewed” date. Subsequent reviews — at least annually before each autumn term — re-verify the content against any UKMT updates published since the previous review.
03.

Editorial Distance from the UKMT

The BMO and UKMT Pathway Guide is editorially independent of the UKMT and the BMO Subtrust. We are not affiliated with either body. The relationship is one of editorial coverage, not partnership or endorsement. Specifically:

  • UKMT and the BMO Subtrust do not review our content before publication and do not have right of veto over what we publish.
  • We do not represent the UKMT in any commercial or pedagogical capacity. Our coverage is editorial and reflective rather than authoritative.
  • For binding eligibility decisions, official competition entry, formal admissions evidence, or any other use where the UKMT’s own published position is decisive, students and parents should rely directly on the UKMT and BMO Subtrust sites rather than on this site’s editorial summary.
04.

Corrections Process

The editorial team treats factual corrections seriously. The corrections process is:

  • Submission: readers submit corrections through the WhatsApp advisor channel. A correction submission should include the page URL, the specific factual claim being challenged, and the primary source supporting the corrected version.
  • Review: the editorial team reviews the submission against the primary sources. Where the correction is verified, we issue the correction within seven working days of submission.
  • Publication of the correction: the corrected page carries a short note at the top of the section indicating what was changed, the date of the correction, and (where appropriate) the primary source supporting the change. The submitter is not identified by default; we may credit verified corrections at the submitter’s explicit request.

Where a submitted correction cannot be verified, we respond explaining the basis for the original wording and (where useful) point the submitter to the primary source we are relying on.

05.

AI and Machine Learning Disclosure

The editorial team uses AI assistance for drafting and editing tasks — content outlines, copy editing, and style consistency. The substance of every page (facts, eligibility rules, dates, biographical details, marking standards) is researched and verified by the human editorial team against primary sources. AI tools are used for the writing process, not for the fact-finding process.

We do not generate factual content from AI without primary-source verification. Where a passage’s substance has been drafted with AI assistance, the verification step (Section 02 above) applies in full. We do not consent to our editorial content being used as training data for third-party AI models without prior written permission.

06.

Reader Code of Conduct

We ask readers to engage with the site’s content in the same spirit of academic integrity that we apply to producing it. Specifically:

  • When citing the site in school work, university admissions documents or scholarship applications, please attribute clearly and link to the primary UKMT or BMO Subtrust source where one exists.
  • When sharing factual details from the site in study groups, forums or social media, please acknowledge any “approximately” or “typically” qualifications — these reflect genuine year-to-year variation rather than editorial hedging.
  • If you spot a factual error, please use our corrections process (Section 04 above) rather than publicly assert that the site is wrong; the corrections team responds quickly and transparently.