Being accused of plagiarism, cheating or any form of academic malpractice can be an intimidating and worrying situation. There are ways to help your case if you are accused, seeking early advice and support is the best way to ensure that you are fully prepared and have the best chance of a positive outcome.
Academic Malpractice is treated very seriously by the University. If you are accused of academic malpractice you should consult Academic Regulations which will detail the processes that will follow.
What is academic malpractice?
Academic malpractice includes (but is not inclusive to) the following:
- Collusion - working in a fraudulent manner with others in an individual assessment
- Plagiarism - taking someone else’s work and using it as your own
- Commissioning - getting another person to complete your own work
- Impersonation - when someone takes an exam or an assessment posing as someone else
- Duplication - replication in parts or in full of another person’s work handed it at the same time either at the same institution or elsewhere
- Syndication - the submission of substantially similar parts of to someone else’s, at any institution at any time
- Falsification of data - where data has been made up, copied, altered of obtained unfairly
- Aiding and abetting - where a student assist another student in any form of academic malpractice
- Professional Misconduct - where a student breaches the code of conduct in doing their work
- Cheating In examinations - bringing unpermitted notes or equipment to help you in your exam
What happens if I am accused of Academic Malpractice?
Students who are suspected of Academic Malpractice will be invited to attend an Assessment Enquiry Panel. The panel does not seek to conclude whether the malpractice was intentional or not, it focuses on whether or not it occurred. Where Academic Malpractice is confirmed the outcome is reported to the Board of Examiners, which determines the nature and extent of the penalty to be imposed.
A range of penalties are available to the Board from lowering the grade, requiring re-assessment, withholding credit for a module. In recent years the whole range of penalties has been imposed. For the most serious cases this has included the withholding of a degree award.
WHO CAN HELP ME?