The school is committed to educate new and existing students about plagiarism and academic misconduct with the aim to raise awareness. Academic misconduct has impact on student learning. Students found with academic misconduct cases may be penalised or they could also fail the unit. In some cases academic misconduct has consequences on registration or accreditation in some professions such as law.
Common types of Plagiarism and Misconduct Cases
- Purchased assessment written by other people e.g. freelance writers
- Copying text from various sources without proper referencing. Sources may include books, journals, websites etc
- Copying text from another student’s assessment. It could be a former student or currently enrolled in the same unit of study. This could have taken place with one or group of students who have access to other students work
- Cheating in the exam
- Using fraudulent medical certificate
What could students do to avoid such cases?
- Being honest: assessment play an important role in maintaining the integrity of the course. Assessments are used to assess the extent to which students have achieved the learning outcomes. Submitted assessment must be student’s original work. If your assessment is done by someone else, then you must question if what you are doing is ethical right
- Seek help: if you are new student and you are not sure about how to cite or reference in essays, reports etc, then seek help from Academic Learning Centre (ALC)
- Read academic journals: all academic publications use different referencing styles. Regular reading of academic papers published in journals will help in understanding how references are cited in the body of the essay and also in the reference list
- Originality: producing your own work is important. Organisation or employers are looking for graduates who are innovative and creative. Originality comes from your ability to think critically and recommending solutions to workplace problems. It is not hard for teaching staff or employers to find out if students or graduates are not producing original work
The school has engaged a number of domestic and international students to assist in raising awareness. A short video is developed and used in all Business and Law related Moodle site. The video is aimed to educate students about plagiarism and academic misconduct.