Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means demonstrating honest, moral behaviours when producing academic work. This involves acknowledging the work of others, giving appropriate credit to others where their ideas are presented as part of your work and the importance of producing work in your own voice. Contributions by artificial intelligence (AI) tools must be properly acknowledged. As part of a learning community, students share ideas and develop new ones – you need to be able to interpret and present other people's ideas and combine these with your own when producing work. To achieve this, you will be supported to develop skills of reflection and self-awareness about topics such as fairness, responsibility and respect in academic practice.

Academic integrity includes a variety of elements including:

• honesty - being truthful about which ideas are our own and which are derived from others and about the methodologies and results of our work.
• trust - the ability to rely on the truth of someone or something is a fundamental pillar of academic pursuit and a necessary foundation of academic work.
• fairness - not trying to gain an advantage by unfair means for instance by passing off the work of others as your own.
• responsibility - taking an active role in our own learning.
• respect - for the work of fellow students, teachers and other writers and scholars.
• courage - being courageous means acting in accordance with one's convictions. Students who exhibit courage hold themselves and their fellow learners to the highest standards of academic integrity even when doing so involves risk of negative consequences, such as a bad grade, or reprisal from their peers or others.

The University recognises that there is a difference between academic misconduct and poor academic practice. Poor academic practice involves minor breaches of discipline-specific citation and/or referencing conventions that give no discernible academic advantage. Where poor academic practice is identified, your work will be marked according to the relevant grade criteria, and you will be directed to the resources available to help you improve your working methods and academic writing to avoid potential academic misconduct.

Plagiarism (including copying, self-plagiarism and collusion)

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the work of another person (or people) and/or content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools as your own without proper acknowledgement. This includes copying the work of another student or other students.

The University expects students to take responsibility for the security of their work (i.e. with written work, to ensure that other students do not get access to electronic or hard copy of the work). Failure to keep work secure may allow others to cheat, and could result in an allegation of academic misconduct for students whose work have been copied, particularly if the origin of the work is in doubt.

Self-plagiarism

The act of presenting part or all of your work that has been previously submitted to meet the requirements of a different assessment, except where the nature of the assessment makes this permissible.

Collusion

The act, by two or more students, of presenting a piece of work jointly without acknowledging the collaboration. This could include permitting or assisting another to present work that has been copied or paraphrased from your own work.

The University also defines collusion as the act of one student presenting a piece of work as their own independent work when the work was undertaken by a group. With group work, where individual members submit parts of the total assignment, each member of a group must take responsibility for checking the legitimacy of the work submitted in his/her name. If even part of the work is found to contain academic misconduct, penalties will normally be imposed on all group members equally.

Cheating in an examination venue

The University defines cheating in an examination venue as including:

• Taking notes or any unauthorised materials into an examination venue. This includes having notes available in toilets or other areas that may be visited during the examination. If students refuse to comply with instructions if they request to leave the examination venue during the examination (e.g. a toilet visit), this may be considered evidence of attempted academic misconduct.
• Obtaining an advanced copy of a question paper.
• Unauthorised communication during an examination (including via telephone or other electronic media).
• Removing an examination answer book from the examination venue.
• Copying from another candidate.
• Allowing oneself to be impersonated.
• Impersonating another candidate.

Fabricating or falsifying data or using without permission another person's work

The act of fabricating or falsifying data to include presenting work that has not taken place. This includes laboratory reports or projects based on experimental or field work. It may also include falsifying attendance sheets for placements where this is part of the assessment requirements.

Purchasing or commissioning

The act of attempting to purchase or purchasing work for an assessment including, for example from the internet, or attempting to commission, or commissioning someone else to complete an assessment on your behalf.

The University recognises that students who are new to UK Higher Education may need some time to learn how to acknowledge sources properly. Therefore, it operates an ‘academic induction period' during which the focus of the University's response to signs of plagiarism and/or collusion is to educate students in regard to appropriate academic practice and academic integrity rather than to penalise unacceptable academic practice.

The academic induction period applies to all full-time and part-time students and is defined as:

• the first academic year of a student's registration with the University on an undergraduate course at Level 3 or 4 only.
• the first teaching block on a postgraduate course

The academic induction period does not apply to:

• direct entrants at Levels 5 and 6
• any form of reassessment

The academic induction period covers first and concurrent occurrences of plagiarism and/or collusion. It does not apply to other forms of academic misconduct.

The procedures for investigating suspected cases of academic misconduct are set out in Academic Regulations 6 Academic Integrity – Taught Courses 2023/24 and Academic Regulations 7 Academic Integrity – Research Degrees 2023/24 (the links to the regulations are available at the bottom of this webpage).

The penalties for academic misconduct have been determined on the basis of the following principles:

• No student should gain any advantage over another as a result of academic misconduct.
• Where there is evidence of collusion, all students implicated in the case should normally receive the same penalty.
• Where there is evidence of plagiarism or copying group work, all those involved will normally receive the same penalty.
• In recognition of understanding how academic integrity has been breached, a student who admits to academic misconduct prior to a formal hearing will receive a reduced penalty (AR6 Taught Courses).

Summary of penalties applicable for Academic Misconduct - Taught Courses

Penalties by Offence and Repeat Offence - Taught Courses

*Mixed offences are when a repeat offence is made in a different category to the first offence.

**Penalty A is only applied where a penalty B offence is admitted to prior to a formal hearing. 

Summary of penalties applicable for Academic Misconduct - Research Degrees

ALLEGATION ARISING BEFORE SUBMISSION OF THE THESIS FOR FINAL EXAMINATION

ALLEGATION ARISING AFTER SUBMISSION OF THE THESIS FOR FINAL EXAMINATION

If you are studying on a taught course, you can use the procedures set out in Academic Regulations 8: Academic Appeals (Taught Courses) to request a review of an outcome in relation to Academic Misconduct either following the Academic Misconduct Panel or following the final decision of the Programme Assessment Board if there is evidence that the procedure was not followed.

If you are studying on a research degree, you can use the procedures set out in Academic Regulations 9: Academic Appeals (Research Degrees) to request a review of an outcome in relation to Academic Misconduct either following the Academic Misconduct Panel or following the final decision of URDC if there is evidence that the procedure was not followed.

You cannot appeal against the penalty imposed by a Programme Assessment Board or the University Research Degrees Committee.