Assessment offences

A breach of assessment regulations is basically breaking the rules of assessment – this refers to coursework and exams. Examples include copying in exams or including other people’s work in your coursework and not referencing it properly (plagiarism).

Common assessment problems:

Plagiarism
A common breach of assessment regulations is plagiarism (passing someone else’s work off as your own). Plagiarism comes in all shapes and sizes from pretending someone else’s whole essay is yours to including a paragraph from a textbook and not referencing it properly. 

It is a very serious offence that carries serious penalties. 

The University uses increasingly sophisticated methods to identify plagiarism including the use of electronic plagiarism detection devices. If you intentionally plagiarise you can be caught easily and the consequences are very severe: it isn’t worth risking your University future for.

How to avoid plagiarism
You can avoid being accused of plagiarism by giving credit in your work wherever you use:

- Another person’s work, ideas, opinions or theory. 
- Any facts, statistics, graphs, models, paintings, computer code, drawings and any other information which is not common knowledge.
- Quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words.
- Paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words. 

The most common type of referencing used within the University is the Harvard system. The University has guidance on referencing on the intranet here. 

And if you are unsure whether you are referencing correctly then make sure you ask your personal tutor, lecturer or module leader.

Collusion
You may be accused of collusion if the University believes you have worked with someone to produce your written work (eg the work is not of your own doing). 

While it is fine to share ideas and exchange sources (like telling a student about a good chapter to read in a book) you must not share drafts of your work or notes you have made from books. This puts you at risk of collusion because another student could submit a piece of work that contains some of your work.

You could be accused of collusion if you:

- Shared your work with another student and the student used it as part of their work. 
- You use another student’s work as part of your work. 

Cheating in exams and in-class tests
The University has rules and regulations about the conduct of students during exams and in-class tests.

It is important that you:

- Do not communicate with any other students during exams or in-class tests 
- Do not take any notes, materials or other course aids into the exam/test room that are not authorised in the exam paper 

How do I know if I have been accused of breaching an assessment regulation?
If the University believes you have breached the assessment regulations, you will receive a letter from the University telling you what you are accused of. 

What happens next?
You will need to state in writing within ten days of the letter whether or not you would like to dispute the allegation and to have an investigation. 

If you are unsure whether you have a case to dispute you should speak to an academic advisor at the Students’ Union. 

If you do decide to dispute the allegation there will be a meeting between you and the University where you will have a chance to tell your side of the story. You are entitled to have a Students’ Union staff member at the meeting regarding your allegation. 

NB: If you would like a representative from the Students’ Union present then you must tell us as soon as possible so we can make sure we have someone available to attend the meeting.

If you decide not to challenge the allegation you will face the penalties outlined in the letter sent to you by the University about your assessment offence. 

Read more about assessment regulations on the University’s website here.