Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is submitting the work or ideas of someone else as your own, without appropriate referencing. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Copying sections from one or more books / articles / other published sources without acknowledgement of the source(s). It’s still plagiarism if you reproduce sections from several sources rather than one.
• Excessive dependence upon one or a limited number of sources is plagiarism if the sources are inadequately referenced, even if the original text has been paraphrased.
• Copying from other members while working in a group.
• Submitting your own previous work (in whole or in part) from another course / module, even if this is from a different institution. This is sometimes known as ‘self-plagiarism’ or ‘double-counting’.
• Submitting the work of any third party, including students and former students.

Impersonation is submitting work prepared by another person for assessment purposes. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Purchasing essays.
• Writing an assessment for another student.

Collusion is the failure to work independently, where this is required, and passing the work off as your own individual effort.

Students should note that collusion is different to collaboration and some assignments may specify that students should work together and submit joint work. Students should never submit joint work unless it is clearly stated as a requirement in the module’s written documentation, and, in such cases, students should always seek clarification from their tutors as to the level of collaboration that is acceptable.

All students implicated in a case of collusion will be considered as having breached Academic Practice, even when one student is believed to have copied from another. This is because the act of not adequately securing your work or sharing / showing someone else your work can make you culpable for collusion. Only where students can provide clear proof that their work has been stolen or otherwise acquired without their consent may they be exonerated from the accusation of collusion.

Exam misconduct means breaching exam regulations to gain an unfair advantage. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Use of unauthorised technology during the exam.
• Use of unauthorised notes / other aids.
• Refusing to hand in your paper at the allocated time.
• Impersonation in exams.

Falsification means submitting data, observations or other research in assessed work which has been either fabricated or falsified.