Cases included a student who handed in an assignment paid for online and another who smuggled exam notes into a toilet.
The number of students caught cheating was included in a disciplinary report released by the university that detailed the incidents investigated for breaches of the tertiary institution's dishonest practices procedures.
It showed the number of dishonesty cases was down 13.46% on the previous year, when 52 cases were investigated.
Most of the incidents related to assignments being plagiarised - some students were found to have deliberately copied other people's work - and students taking unauthorised notes into exams.
The most common punishment for those found to have cheated was being given zero marks for the exam or assignment where they were at fault and some were also advised to seek help from the university's student learning centre.
Students taking commerce papers were the subject of the most cases (17), followed by humanities students (15), while students enrolled in the sciences were dealt with in seven cases, and health science students in six.
The two subjects in which the highest number of students were found to have been dishonest were information science and ''Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies'' (five), followed by tourism (four) and management (three).
More than 20,000 students studied at Otago last year.
Two of the worst incidents of dishonest practice were referred to vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne.
One involved a graduate found to have altered her academic record when applying for a job at a science laboratory in the university, while another student was found to have fraudulently enrolled in two papers for which she did not have the prerequisites.
The woman who altered her record was told she was unlikely to be able to re-enrol at the university for five years, while the other student had her enrolment in the two papers cancelled and was banned from enrolling in any other papers at the university until a full investigation was completed by the university's provost.
Other cases included a health science student who placed notes for their final examination in the toilet area, an accounting and finance student who submitted an assignment identical to a previous student's, an anthropology and archaeology student who submitted an assignment bought online and a zoology student caught with exam notes written on their hand.
