Prosecutors say that in April 2015, Mr Hoyle, who was teaching postgraduate business law, was alerted by another lecturer that the semester one assignment question had been uploaded online, on a website where essays could be bought.

Mr Hoyle, 67, expressed a belief that some of his students had plagiarised. Over the course of 10 days, he emailed five students inviting them to his campus office to discuss their papers.

Prosecutors contend that when each of the students, all women, came to his office in building 11 during that time, Mr Hoyle presented the paper and indicated the student was in trouble. It's alleged he put his hands on the students, such as by touching their thigh or lower back, or tried to kiss them. It's alleged he raped one of the women.

In his opening address, prosecutor Trent Hickey told the court Mr Hoyle had a tendency to invite students into his office and to seek sexual gratification from the students once there.

The prosecutor said it was significantly more likely that events had "occurred in the way [the students] said they occurred, once you know the accused had that tendency, or that modus operandi".

Mr Hoyle's barrister, Liesl Chapman SC, also addressed the jury, and said Mr Hoyle did not dispute arranging over email to meet the students, nor dispute meeting the students in his office.

What was "very much in dispute", she said, was what happened between Mr Hoyle and each of the complainants in his office.

"Please don't be overwhelmed by the fact that there are five complainants making these allegations," she told the jury.

"There was nothing sinister on the part of Mr Hoyle in arranging the meetings. They had a context."

The defence barrister also flagged that "the credibility of these five students regarding these alleged acts, is very much in issue".

The first student Mr Hoyle invited to his office was the first to give evidence on Wednesday. Her name, and the name of all the women, is suppressed, and Fairfax Media has assigned pseudonyms.

The woman, Ms W, told the court via an interpreter and from a remote witness room, that Mr Hoyle had emailed her alerting her to a problem with her assignment and asking her to meet him. Once in his office, on April 20, he had shown her a PowerPoint presentation.

The first slide had her assignment and a percentage figure that rated the likeness of her assignment to other documents, calculated by plagiarism software used at the university called URKUND.

"[Mr Hoyle said], 'the rate isn't that high, it's not a problem. Next we have some problems', and clicked onto the next PowerPoint. There were some pornography pictures, including child pornography.

"[He said] this is a serious problem. I may report this to the faculty and also the police. He said in a soothing voice, 'we can do something to avoid this', but he didn't specify what kinds of things."

Ms W said Mr Hoyle had told her she had looked at pornography websites in the course of researching her assignment. He had said she could go to jail, and had touched her on the thighs and hands.

"I was pretty sure he was asking to have sex with me," she said.

On April 22, Ms W had gone to Legal Aid, and was helped by someone, who wrote a letter to the faculty head on her behalf.

Under cross-examination by Ms Chapman, Ms W denied she knew there were answers to the business law assignment available on the internet, and denied she had plagiarised her assignment.

She denied speaking to other students about cheating. And when Ms Chapman named specific students, Ms W denied knowing them.

Two acts of indecency are alleged to have been committed on Ms W.

Mr Hoyle faces a total of eight counts of an act of indecency and two of sexual intercourse without consent against the five students.

He was suspended shortly after the allegations became known.

The trial continues before Justice Michael Elkaim.