Academic Misconduct Information
What is academic conduct?
This is the set of requirements the university sets out to ensure your assessments have academic integrity. This means acting with honesty when completing your work. For example, citing your sources, using quotation marks where appropriate, and completing work independently, to name a few. The University’s Academic Misconduct Policy sets outs the dos and don’ts for academic conduct, and our Student Union Academic Misconduct Guide helps to explain the policy.
What is academic misconduct?
Academic misconduct means attempting to gain an unfair advantage on any assessment or attempting to assist another student to do the same. There are different types of academic misconduct, that are explained in more detail within the University’s Academic Misconduct Policy (section 2.4, page 6 to section 2.15, page 8). Some of the more common types include:
- Poor academic practise (PAP), errors in referencing or quoting other sources.
- Plagiarism, copying other’s work verbatim or near verbatim without appropriate acknowledgement of the source.
- Self-plagiarism, referring to, or reusing, your own work without appropriate acknowledgement or permission.
- Cheating, bringing unauthorised materials into exams, breaching the exam regulations, or gaining an unfair advantage in other ways.
- Collusion, working with another student to complete an assessment that was supposed to be completed independently.
- Unethical conduct, failing to gain ethical approval, bribing participants, breaching confidentiality of participants.
What will happen if I get caught breaching the policy?
If the person marking your work thinks that you may have examples of academic misconduct within your work, they will stop marking and hand it over to the Academic Conduct Officer (ACO). The ACO will look into the suspicions to decide if there is evidence of PAP, or if there is evidence of academic misconduct. More information on the processes for suspected PAP can be found in section A1 (page 10) within the University’s Academic Misconduct Policy, and academic misconduct can be found in section B1 (page 13).
If the ACO finds no evidence of PAP or academic misconduct the work will be returned to the marker, and you mark will be released to you. If the ACO finds evidence of PAP or academic misconduct, you will be sent an email explaining what they have found and what evidence supports the finding.
You will be asked to respond to the allegation, by either admitting or denying it within 10 working days. If you deny the allegation, you must provide evidence or mitigating circumstances to support the denial. This may then be escalated to a panel meeting to discuss the findings and both party’s evidence. If you accept the allegation, you will receive an email confirming the penalty. The Advice Centre can help you draft your response and can support you throughout the process. Please complete the Advice Enquiry Form to speak to our advisor.
There are penalties for breaching the academic misconduct policy, the severity of the punishment will depend on the severity of the breach, and if you have any previous cases of PAP or academic misconduct.
Once the outcome has been confirmed, you will receive an email with the next steps. The University will also keep a record of the details of the case, in case of further breaches.
How can I avoid PAP or academic misconduct?
The best way to avoid breaching this policy, is to be diligent while working. Make sure you cite your sources, don’t rush, and don’t intentionally do anything that could give you an unfair advantage.
There are plenty of resources available through the University, the library, and online to ensure your work has integrity.
Cite them right is an online resource that can help with references and citations. You can choose the referencing style and see how your references should look. Cite them right is also available in book form from the library.
The Academic Skills team offer lots of resources, including workshops and mentoring.
If you’re ever unsure if something may breach the policy, ask your module leader for advice or guidance.
