Details of students who are caught cheating will be recorded on a register at the University of Auckland from this year.
Until now, departments retained their own records for proven cases of misconduct.
But spokesman Bill Williams said the university-wide register was approved by the university's senate aftera review of the way the issue was handled by "benchmark universities", particularly those in Australia.
"Access to this register will be restricted and it will be able to be consulted only when determining penalties for proven cases of deliberate misconduct," said Mr Williams.
"This will enable the university to determine the extent of such misconduct and to apply appropriate penalties in the case of students who offend repeatedly."
David Do, the Auckland University Students Association president, said students would welcome the move as they wanted to uphold standards.
"Consider that students dobbed in fellow students up in the medical school last year," he said. "Students abhor plagiarism and cheating."
He said any potential concerns about the scheme were addressed during its development.
"Students must sign off on what gets inputted into the system as accurate. They can lodge their own statement to put on the record."
Mr Williams said the university promoted academic integrity among its students. It defined a range of behaviours that constitute "academic misconduct" in coursework - such as plagiarism and copying the work of other students - and had processes for dealing with them.
