Academic misconduct

Academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. Academic misconduct includes plagiarism, collusion, falsification, deceit, cheating and personation. The University takes all reported incidences of academic misconduct seriously and seeks to ensure that they are dealt with efficiently and appropriately.

Academic misconduct investigation procedure

All forms of academic misconduct are regarded as an offence and are punishable under the University’s Code of Student Conduct. The University has a network of School and College Academic Misconduct Officers (SAMOS/CAMOS) who are responsible for investigating suspected cases at School or College level, and for determining appropriate penalties.

College Academic Misconduct Officers are:

• College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences: Dr Filippo Fontanelli
• College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine: Dr Martin Simmen
• College of Science & Engineering: Dr Matt Bell

Academic Misconduct Investigation Procedures

Report form

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the most common and best known example of academic misconduct, and is increasingly a problem within higher education. Plagiarism is the presentation of another person’s work as the student’s own, without proper acknowledgement of the source, with or without the creator’s permission, intentionally or unintentionally.

What plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

Collusion

Collusion is a form of plagiarism. It is an unauthorised and unattributed collaboration of students in a piece of assessed work.

Falsification

Falsification is an attempt to present fictitious or distorted data, evidence, references, citations, or experimental results, and/or to knowingly make use of such material.

Cheating

Cheating is any attempt to obtain or to give assistance in an examination or an assessment without due acknowledgement. This includes submitting work which is not one's own.

Deceit

Deceit is dishonesty in order to achieve advantage. For example, by resubmitting one’s own previously assessed work.

Personation

Personation is the assumption of the identity of another person with intent to deceive or gain unfair advantage.

Affirmation Meetings

Further information on the purpose of affirmation meetings and how they should be conducted can be found in the guidance below: