ARC Guide to Academic Disciplinary Procedures
Contents
WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINARY? 2
What is Plagiarism, Collusion and Cheating? 2
How can plagiarism occur? 2
How can collusion occur? 3
How can cheating occur? 4
What is Contract Cheating and how can it occur? 4
What is Referencing? 5
Preparatory Materials and Copies of Coursework 6
What is poor academic practice? 6
What is TURNITIN? 7
I HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF DISCIPLINARY OFFENCE- WHAT SHALL I DO? 7
Will I get an opportunity to explain myself? 8
Will I be asked to attend a meeting in my College? 8
Should I disclose difficulties I had with the work and in my personal life? 9
I have sent a response to my College and attended a meeting; what now? 9
My response has been rejected by the College 9
Will I have to attend a hearing? 10
What happens at a hearing? 10
Hearings; Order of Proceeding 11
What penalties can be applied? 14
“Mark of zero” penalty; what does it actually mean? (UG students) 14
What if I do not agree with the Disciplinary Panel’s decision? 15
Suspension and/or Exclusion- how does that affect me? 16
What advice and help can I expect to receive from the Advice & Representation Centre? 16
WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINARY?
Student misconduct which can result in students facing disciplinary procedures is described by the University in Senate Regulation 6
The University has produced their own guidance which can be found here
This guide is about conduct which breaches academic rules. If you are facing a disciplinary following a non-academic offences, please refer to our guide on Non-Academic Disciplinaries.
What is Plagiarism, Collusion and Cheating?
The most common academic disciplinary offences considered under the academic disciplinary procedure are Plagiarism Collusion and Cheating:
§ Plagiarism is the knowing or reckless presentation of another person’s thoughts, writings, and inventions, as one’s own. It includes the incorporation of another person’s work from published or unpublished sources, without indicating that the material is derived from those sources. It includes the use of material obtained from the internet.
§ Collusion involves helping, or attempting to help, another student to gain an unfair advantage in any formal assessment or examination.
§ Cheating is understood to be any attempted or actual dishonest action in relation to any academic work or research, including in respect of any assessment or examination. For example, taking unauthorised material into an examination (including revision notes or unauthorised equipment) shall normally be regarded as cheating.
Please note: attempted action, even if unsuccessful, will result in a penalty, if proven.
The Academic Skills Service can help you further to improve your writing practice.
How can plagiarism occur?
Most essays, reports, assignments and occasionally exams will need to include sections or ideas from other people’s work; this is standard academic practice. However, it is important that where you have included other people’s ideas, text or diagrams in an assignment, they must be clearly referenced (please see section below). This will leave the examiners in no doubt that you are only expecting to be marked for identifying or analysing a relevant source and not trying to claim someone else’s work as your own original idea. If it is found that you have attempted to pass someone else’s work off as your own, this will be classed as plagiarism.
Examples of actions which result in plagiarism:
§ Simply copying out other authors own words, word for word without any acknowledgement. This is the most obvious case.
§ Using substantial extracts of other authors’ answers but transposing the order of some paragraphs, omitting odd sentences and making slight changes, without any acknowledgement of the source. This form of plagiarism is more common.
§ Rewriting another person’s answer entirely in your own words, but preserving essentially intact both the sequence and structure of his/her argument, without acknowledging it as being the source of the material.
§ Taking a paragraph from one source, then a paragraph from another and so on, all without acknowledgement of these sources, and linking them with a few words of your own.
§ All (or any) of the above, and not acknowledging (in the text and/or in the footnotes/ endnotes) the source as necessary, but listing the work in the bibliography. Simply listing a source in your bibliography without indicating clearly in your essay which material from that source is used in your essay (and where it is used) is NOT sufficient acknowledgement of the source, and DOES constitute plagiarism.
How can collusion occur?
It will not be surprising if the members of a group who study together produce answers which are broadly similar, however if two or more students’ work is substantially identical, they will all be presumed to be cases of plagiarism and/or collusion, unless a student can prove that he/she is not responsible for copying and has not given his/her work to another student to copy. Therefore it is important to make sure that you recognise the importance of safeguarding the confidentiality and originality of your work prior to submission.
Steps to avoid collusion:
§ Do not read each other’s essays. Do not read out your essays to each other, either in draft or in final form. Where it is suggested that your English needs amendment, do not show that part of your essay to the listener(s).
§ Do not circulate or exchange essays before submission. You must absolutely ensure that you do not show your essay to any other student before submission.
§ Do not progress from discussing how a question might be answered to working out a common essay plan that you will use.
§ Do not ask another student to type your essay on his or her computer; it can lead to different students’ work becoming conflated.
How can cheating occur?
Taking unauthorised material into an examination (including revision notes or unauthorised equipment) is quite common but is still regarded as attempted deception and therefore cheating. Examination invigilators are alert and monitor the exams very closely, so do not take the risk.
Steps to avoid cheating:
§ Always ensure you have read the rules for each exam you are due to take; your College will provide you with rules well in advance of the examination date and these rules will clearly detail what you are allowed to take into that specific examination with you.
§ The examination rules will also detail whether you are allowed an annotated or un-annotated book (if you are allowed a book at all), you need to ensure you fully understand what this means. If you are uncertain please contact your College.
What is Contract Cheating and how can it occur?
Contract Cheating means acquiring an assignment on the open market (e.g. via the internet) and/or paying for someone’s services to write the assignment for you. Whether this was paid or not paid is irrelevant and it is still classed as a disciplinary offence. Furthermore, posting a request for an assignment is also considered to be an offence.
It may be that you are legitimately seeking advice on a subject and not asking for a completed assignment, in which case you still need to be careful. If this is the case you must ensure you cite the source in your assignment and provide a copy of the help provided so as to prove the usage was:
- To inform the development of your own ideas
- To clarify a concept you were struggling to understand
Do remember, your College and the University have a responsibility to offer you assistance in such a case, free of charge.
What is Referencing?
Obviously, in student essays and examinations, truly original ideas will be rare. You will, for the most part, be presenting opinions derived from teachers, textbook writers and other authors.
It is therefore not plagiarism to write an essay which begins “In answering this question I cannot do better than to quote in full the view presented by Jones in his book ‘Standard Answers to Common Essay Questions’, who writes “...... ” and ends: “Thus Mr Jones has given us an excellent answer to this very interesting question”.
Although not plagiarised, such an essay will fail (on other grounds, because we are seeking your own words and your ideas, not Jones’). More specifically, we are looking to see why you may agree or disagree with published commentaries on the points raised in assessment questions (e.g., as may be found in textbooks, journal articles, judicial opinions) and/or whether you may come up with any novel ideas and/or criticisms on the subject area to be analysed.
As a general guide, be aware that in all the following circumstances you must include a correct reference when:
§ Quoting sections from a book;
§ Including text that you have cut and pasted from the internet;
§ ‘Paraphrasing’ or summarising someone else’s argument or idea;
§ Using another student’s notes (even in group work projects);
§ Including points from lecture notes.
Plagiarism can not only occur when quoting from books or websites but also in the copying of another students work. This is treated very seriously and should never occur in academic practice.
Although there are several systems of referencing, the Harvard System version is generally used for assignments at Brunel. You may want to clarify with your College what referencing style they prefer.
You do not need to avoid direct quotation entirely. Quotations are an integral part of most essay writing. However, they should be used sensibly and not so frequently so as to make the assessment into a disjointed piece of work, characterised by excessively short paragraphs. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND REFERENCING.
Preparatory Materials and Copies of Coursework
For Good Practice you should always try to retain all preparatory notes and/or photocopies of materials used for assessments at the very least, until you receive notification of your mark/grade for the associated assessment.
Some Colleges require a sample of student cohort who will be required to submit these preparatory notes and materials (in original or photocopied form) and these are often expected to be available on request at any time after submission of your assessment. These notes and materials are to include hard copies of any materials used, including web materials. You are also expected to keep at least one hard copy of your coursework/report and a copy of your assessment electronically on computer and on disk/CD/DVD.
It is vital you retain all of your Preparatory Materials (including written notes), not only in case you do not pass the assessment first time around but because this clearly shows how you compiled your assessment and what you used to successfully complete the assessment.
What is poor academic practice?
Poor academic practice refers to unintentional and inadequate academic practice rather than plagiarism; if it is decided that your work resembles that of poor academic practice rather than plagiarism, your work should be marked or graded in the normal way (on its academic merits).
If you are a final year student, Poor Academic Practice may be treated as an unacceptable response to allegations of plagiarism. You have after all managed to successfully progress to level 3, after 2 years of studying and it will be expected that you know how to reference correctly.
What is TURNITIN?
Brunel University uses TURNITIN in an effort to identify plagiarism; students' papers are submitted electronically and then they are compared against:
· previously submitted material held in the database
· over 1.8 billion web sites
· essays from cheat sites
· selected subscription services
The service compares the student's work with the other sources and produces an originality report. This report highlights where matches have been found in the text and indicates the sources of the match. Reports are colour coded to indicate the percentage of text matched. The report is non-judgmental in that it does not distinguish between properly referenced and acknowledged quotations and unacknowledged information sources.
Academic judgment is still required to determine whether plagiarism has occurred therefore Turnitin is only available to academic staff at Brunel University.
If you receive a Turnitin report as part of the evidence in the plagiarism allegations, you should immediately arrange to meet your tutor or speak to your programme or course leader to clarify which parts of the report apply to the those allegations and which are innocent matches or properly referenced sections.
I HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF DISCIPLINARY OFFENCE- WHAT SHALL I DO?
If you are identified by your College as having committed an academic offence, the Head of College will write to you asking you to explain your actions. With the letter you will receive evidence of the academic offence, for example copies of your work, identifying where the plagiarism has occurred and copies of the source (extracts from books, journals or websites) that the material may have been plagiarised from. The letter will contain what regulation you are believed to have breached.
Will I get an opportunity to explain myself?
Yes, you will need to explain your actions in writing to the Head of College within 7 days.
Examples of what you can write in your letter are:
· Whether you admit or deny the allegation(s)
· Your explanation of what happened
If you are admitting to the allegation:
§ Whether you knew that this was wrong at the time that you did it
§ Details of why you think this may have happened – i.e. what your motivation for doing this was
§ An explanation of why you believe that you acted this way – if you were experiencing difficult circumstances that may have affected you it is important to explain this.
§ Have you ever received any feedback which mentioned that your referencing style is incorrect? And have you always referenced this way?
If you are denying the allegation you should explain how you prepared the piece of work and, if possible, how you think that the allegation may have arisen.
You can respond to allegations by email:
· College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences: