What is Plagiarism and Collusion?
Say NO to plagiarism & collusion! Say YES to Academic Integrity!
Two of the more common forms of academic misconduct are plagiarism and collusion.
What is an academic misconduct?
Our regulations (which can be found at : http://www.uel.ac.uk/qa/manual/documents/PART8-AcademicMisconductRegulations.doc) define academic misconduct as any behaviour “likely to confer an unfair advantage in assessment, whether by advantaging the alleged offender or disadvantaging (deliberately or unconsciously) another or others”
(UEL Manual of General Regulations, 2010, Part 8 Academic Misconduct, 8.2.1)
Tales of a Deadline - read how one student's nightmare of academic misconduct began ...
What is Plagiarism?
If you use other people’s ideas and words, you must acknowledge and reference them. If you quote their words, you must do so within quotation marks and indicate with a citation where the words are taken from. If you do not, then you give the impression that you wrote those words and that is plagiarism. If you are uncertain about how to reference, you should refer to UEL's standard referencing system set out in Cite Them Right.
Remember that those assessing your work are concerned with identifying how much you know. If your work consists largely of other people’s work (taken from books, the web, or other sources) all of which is properly referenced, you will not be accused of academic misconduct. You will, however, probably fail that assessment, because you will have demonstrated so little of your own knowledge. Avoiding plagiarism is also a way of developing your confidence as a writer and bringing out your voice - these are your ideas, thoughts and at time criticisms.
What is self plagiarism?
Another type of plagiarism is self-plagiarism: where an author presents, as new, material that s/he has previously published. You can avoid self-plagiarism by ensuring that you reference the author (yourself), both in the text itself and in the list of references/bibliography.
It is not acceptable to submit for assessment work that includes significant sections previously included in work that has already been assessed. (That amounts to claiming two measures of academic credit for a single measure of work.) If you feel that a particular assessment task is very similar to an assessment task you have previously undertaken (and that your earlier work might satisfy the later assessment), you should discuss the matter with the Module Leader, before you start the work.
Everyone re-uses their own work to a certain extent, but it is clearly unfair that a student should receive two sets of credit for one piece of work. So, if you submit work for one assessment that uses a significant amount of work that you have submitted for another assessment, then this is a breach of academic integrity i.e. academic misconduct.
What is Collusion?
Unless you have been told otherwise, any work you submit for assessment must be your own work, even if the work has been produced as a result of groupwork. You can discuss ideas for the work with your fellow students, but you should never lend a draft of your work before it has been submitted. If two submissions are largely similar, the students concerned are likely to be accused of colluding with each other.
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