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Academic Impropriety

Academic Impropriety includes plagiarism, collusion and cheating. Every student needs to be aware of what plagiarism, collusion and cheating are and what the consequences are for students who are found guilty of academic impropriety.

The university has regulations in place that state exactly what plagiarism, collusion and cheating are and these can be found here.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as submitting someone else's work for assessment and passing it off as your own either intentionally or unintentionally. This can be due to poor referencing or it may be a deliberate attempt to deceive by passing off the work as your own. In either case it is not acceptable and a student cannot use poor referencing skills as an excuse for plagiarism, i.e. that they did not knowingly plagiarise.

Every student is expected to know the academic regulations with regard to cheating and plagiarism. Lack of knowledge of these regulations is not a defence.

Brief quotations that are suitably attributed are acceptable, however, long quotations even those that are referenced, are not, because this is not your own work.

Changing a few words from another person's work and putting it into your own material without referencing is plagiarism and is not acceptable.

When paraphrasing another person's work you need to reference this as it is not your own work, however, you don't need to put it in quotation marks. This is what is called derivative work and although it isn't plagiarism this will only gain low marks.

A guide to the Harvard Reference system can be found at: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/StudentServices/StuServices_Docs/HarvardFullGuide.doc

Collusion

The conscious collaboration, without official approval, between two or more students in the preparation and production of work which is ultimately submitted by each in an identical or substantially similar form and/or is represented by each to be the product of his or her individual efforts. Collusion also occurs where there is unauthorised co-operation between a student and another person in the preparation and production of work which is presented as the student's own.

Cheating

Cheating is any unfair means to enhance your academic performance and includes the following among other things:

• any form of communication with or copying from any other source during an examination.
• communicating during an examination with any person other than an authorised member of staff.
• introducing any written, printed or other material into an examination (including electronically stored information) other than that specified in the rubric of the examination paper.
• gaining access to unauthorised material during or before an assessment.
• the use of mobile telephones or pagers during an assessment or examination.
• the submission of false claims of previously gained qualifications, research or experience in order to gain credit for prior learning.
• the submission of work for assessment that has already been submitted as all or part of the assessment for another module without the prior knowledge and consent of the module leader for subsequent assessments.
  Make sure you are aware of what constitutes plagiarism, collusion and cheating so that you don't end up having a meeting for alleged academic misconduct, and remember that if you are found guilty of academic misconduct it can have serious consequences ranging from a fail in a module to expulsion from the university.
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What do I do if I have to attend a School Investigatory Panel meeting?

If you are called in to a School Investigatory Panel meeting, you should contact the SU Advice Centre for advice and representation on how to prepare for the meeting. A trained adviser can accompany you to a meeting with the department to offer support and representation and explain the possible outcomes of the meeting. It is important that you are honest and clear to your department on exactly what has happened to result in you being asked to attend an alleged plagiarism meeting.