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Appendix 4 - Lancaster University Plagiarism Working Party

DEALING WITH PLAGIARISM BY STUDENTS

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

(approved by the Senate 28 May 2003 for implementation from 1 October 2003)

Introduction

Lancaster 's academic enterprise is rooted in a culture of trust and integrity, and this underpins all aspects of the institution's teaching and learning strategy. Most students do not cheat - they are honest and hard working, and they rightly deserve the trust of their tutors. Cheating, which is a form of academic malpractice, is the exception not the norm.

But some students do cheat, in different ways and for different reasons. In order to be fair on those who don't and to protect the institution's academic reputation and credibility, procedures are required to reduce the likelihood of cheating, to detect when it is happening, and to deal with those found guilty of it. This paper deals specifically with plagiarism, which is a common form of cheating.

To what work does this framework apply?

This framework (and the sanctions within it) applies to all coursework submitted by students for examination by the University in all academic programmes other than research degrees. It does not apply to those degree schemes where the entire assessment is based on one submitted piece of work (eg MPhil, MSc by Research, and PhD). The attached regulations cover both coursework and examinations. The code covering cheating in examinations is consistent with Statute 21. Appendix A of the University regulations (Malpractice in undergraduate and postgraduate examinations and coursework) is attached.

Academic integrity

Core values of academic integrity (honesty and trust) lie at the heart of our academic enterprise, and they underpin all activities within the University. The University values a culture of honesty and mutual trust, and it expects all members of the University to respect and uphold these core values at all times, in everything they do at, for and in the name of the University.

Academic integrity is important because, without honesty and trust, true academic discourse becomes impossible, learning is distorted and the evaluation of student progress and academic quality is seriously compromised. Consequently, the University is committed to:

  1. defending the academic credibility and reputation of the institution
  2. protecting the standards of its awards
  3. ensuring that its students receive due credit for the work they submit for assessment
  4. advising its students of the need for academic integrity, and providing them with guidance on best practice in studying and learning
  5. educating its students about what intellectual property is, why it matters, how to protect their own, and how to legitimately access other people's
  6. protecting the interests of those students who do not cheat.

Forms of cheating

Cheating, a form of academic malpractice, includes: cheating in examinations, plagiarism, duplication and false declaration.

Cheating in examinations: occurs when a candidate communicates, or attempts to communicate, with a fellow candidate or individual who is neither an invigilator or member of staff; copies, or attempts to copy from a fellow candidate; attempts to introduce or consult during the examination, any unauthorised printed or written material, or electronic calculating or information storage device; or mobile phones or other communication device, or personates or allows himself or herself to be impersonated.

Plagiarism: involves the unacknowledged use of someone else's work, usually in coursework, and passing it off as if it were his/her own. This category of cheating includes the following:

  1. collusion, where a piece of work prepared by a group is represented as if it were the student's own;
  2. commission or use of work by the student which is not his/her own and representing it as if it were:
    • purchase of a paper from a commercial service, including internet sites, whether pre-written or specially prepared for the student concerned
    • submission of a paper written by another person, either by a fellow student or a person who is not a member of the university;
  3. duplication of the same or almost identical work for more than one module;
  4. the act of copying or paraphrasing a paper from a source text, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, without appropriate acknowledgement;
  5. submission of another student's work, whether with or without that student's knowledge or consent.

Fabrication of results: occurs when a student claims to have carried out tests, experiments or observations that have not taken place or presents results not supported by the evidence with the object of obtaining an unfair advantage.

Deliberate and inadvertent plagiarism

Some students who plagiarise do so deliberately, with intent to deceive. This conscious, pre-mediated form of cheating is regarded as a particularly serious breach of the core values of academic integrity and one of the worst forms of cheating, for which the University has zero tolerance.

Many students who plagiarise probably do so inadvertently, without realising it - because of inexperienced study skills, including note taking, referencing and citations. Many students (particularly those from different cultures and educational systems) find UK academic referencing/acknowledgement systems and conventions awkward, and proof-reading is not always easy for dyslexic students and some visually-impaired students.

However, ignorance of proper procedures or good practice in academic writing is no excuse, particularly if a student has previously been accused of plagiarism, advised to seek study skills help, and fails to learn the lessons.

Why is plagiarism a problem?

Plagiarism is a problem for four main reasons -

  1. It involves unacceptable practices, particularly literary theft (stealing someone else's intellectual property, and breach of copyright) and academic deception (in order to gain a higher grade)
  2. It involves poor or careless academic practice (including poor note-taking and poor procedures for preparing academic work)
  3. It prevents the student who plagiarises from knowing how well they have performed (by yielding a false grade), thus denying them the opportunity to learn lessons, improve their study skills, and improve their knowledge and understanding
  4. If plagiarism goes undetected and unpunished, it effectively penalises and can demoralise those students who do not plagiarise

The University regards all forms of cheating as unacceptable, because they undermine the core values of academic integrity (honesty and trust). Each form of cheating is a breach of the University Regulations, and is liable to be pursued by appropriate disciplinary action.

A student who knowingly assists another student to plagiarise (for example by willingly giving them their own work to copy from) is guilty of academic malpractice, and will be dealt with under existing University Regulations.

Preventing Plagiarism

Focus of prevention

In the context of plagiarism, prevention involves three key areas -

  1. the education of students:
    1. by raising awareness of the positive and negative reasons why they should not plagiarise (positive reasons including getting reliable feedback on their progress and learning, upholding core values of academic integrity; negative reasons including risk of being caught and penalised)
    2. by advising them how to make sure that they do not plagiarise by accident (eg by appropriate note-taking and essay-writing skills, adopting proper procedures for quotations, citations and referencing, careful use of paraphrasing, etc)
    3. by providing appropriate study skills advice, both generic and subject-specific, to inform students about best practice in note-taking and writing assignments, and provide opportunities for formative feedback
    4. for undergraduate students, by placing the main focus on first year students (who often have undeveloped study skills, lack of practice and culturally different practices) but reinforcing it through years two and three
    5. for taught postgraduate students, by emphasising the need for academic integrity throughout their period of study, and in all contexts
  2. the setting of appropriate assignments by staff, in order to reduce the likelihood of giving students the opportunity to plagiarise or rewarding them for doing so. Plagiarism can be effectively designed out, for example by varying assignment tasks from year to year; making them course-specific and locally relevant, and linking assignments specifically to particular course material.
  3. making students aware of the penalty system for plagiarism - what it covers, when it applies, how it works, what penalties could be applied, that it is an institution-wide procedure and is applied consistently, and why it is necessary to have this penalty system (to ensure consistency across the University and fairness to students)

Components of prevention

Key components in the prevention strategy include -

  • Institutional commitment: there must be a firm commitment by all stakeholders in the University to consistent use of the framework
  • Promotion of core values: the University should include its position on academic integrity as one of the key values to be communicated through all promotional material
  • Explicit policy: the University must have an explicit policy that communicates the positive value we place on academic integrity, and that states why we value academic integrity (in teaching and research) and what we will lose if we do not value and support it; eg
  • core values of academic integrity underlined by the Vice-Chancellor, College Principals and college tutors during Intro Week talks with incoming students
  • the message needs public endorsement by LUSU and GSA
  • publish an institution-wide Academic Integrity Handbook, that defines and promotes best practice, to be distributed to all students during Intro Week
  • Explicit criteria and guidelines: The University must develop and publish a set of commonly agreed guidelines of what constitutes plagiarism, including an agreed working definition, with examples and illustrations, and references to appropriate web sites, published sources and sources of study skill help
  • Transparency and dissemination: the framework must be widely publicised within the institution, to all staff and students. This should explain the core values of academic integrity, define plagiarism and give relevant examples of what it covers, explain why plagiarism is unacceptable and outline the detection and penalty systems. Appropriate methods include -
  • institutional posters on display in all departments and in the colleges
  • item in SCAN at start of every academic year
  • item in each College Handbook
  • the guidelines and plagiarism policy statement must be included in every course and programme handbook
  • departmental tutors should actively discuss with their students (at an early stage, and particularly during the first few weeks of Part I) what plagiarism is and how to avoid it; College Tutors should be encouraged to do so too, to reinforce the message
  • Inadvertent versus deliberate plagiarism: the framework recognises that a clear distinction must be drawn between inexperienced academic study and writing skills (especially among first year undergraduates and international students) and wilful cheating and deception. The former requires remedial teaching and only the latter deserves severe penalties. But intentionality is difficult to establish, so the framework allows a first offence based on "benefit of doubt", with a relatively light penalty and a requirement that the student seeks appropriate study skills advice; subsequent plagiarism offences are more likely to be deliberate, so the penalty system becomes progressively more serious
  • Educating students about best practice: to help students learn best practice in academic writing, each department should provide them with discipline-specific annotated examples to show work which is clearly plagiarised, work which is acceptably paraphrased and work which is correctly referenced
  • Support for academic study skills: the framework requires the university to provide adequate and appropriate study skills support for students, particularly support designed to promote best practice in academic writing. It also requires production and publication of a guide (in printed and web format) to the study resources and support available to students on campus
  • Staff awareness and training: all tutors (departmental and college) should be aware of and clear about the plagiarism framework and procedures, and appropriate training should be made available by the university to facilitate this
  • Setting assessments: assessments should be set in such a way that plagiarism becomes difficult to implement, eg by tying assessments closely to specific course goals, using local or specialised case materials for analysis, avoiding widely available case material, requiring multiple case studies or material from multiple sources to be included in student work, etc
  • Supporting non-native speakers: whilst recognising that all students can engage in plagiarism, the University needs to provide adequate and appropriate resources (staff and equipment) particularly to support non-native speakers in their study and writing skills; eg staff refer a student to language support staff where there are particularly severe cases; scope for a University-wide 'essay writing skills' course that might be highly recommended for all non-native speakers and (as a remedial course) for all students who demonstrate difficulties in essay writing
  • Academic integrity declaration: each student should be required to sign at least one academic declaration each year for every department to whom they submit coursework, and each department should have discretion over how many time thereafter they wish to see a signed declaration, up to and including on every piece of work. The Undergraduate Studies Committee has already agreed a standard form of words for the declaration, and every department and programme should use it.

Detecting Plagiarism

The primary responsibility for detecting plagiarism in student work continues to rest with the individual marker, who should be alert to the possibility of finding plagiarism in students' work, and who must always use their specialist knowledge and academic judgement in deciding what is and what is not acceptable within that subject. For example, in many subjects it is difficult to decide what is common knowledge and what should be attributed to sources, which is where the marker's expert judgement is exercised.

Roles and Responsibilities

Academic Officer

Each department or equivalent shall designate one senior academic member of staff, to be known as the Academic Officer, who shall take responsibility for the investigation of and subsequent action where appropriate for plagiarism in coursework at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A deputy Academic Officer shall also be designated. The duties of the Academic Officer shall include reporting cases of plagiarism to the Student Registry, checking a student's plagiarism record held by the Student Registry, and keeping a written record of all cases of alleged plagiarism, including the evidence presented and the outcome.

Academic Marker

Each academic marker identified as such by a department or equivalent shall be responsible for detecting and reporting on suspected plagiarism in coursework on cases for which they have marking responsibilities to the relevant Academic Officer, and for producing evidence in support of such a claim.

Student Registry

Designated members of the Student Registry shall be responsible for record-keeping for all alleged and detected cases of academic malpractice, including plagiarism in coursework and cheating in examinations. The duties of the officers, or approved alternates, will include keeping a written record of all cases, including reports from Academic Officers and from cases heard by the Standing Academic Committee, giving information and other support to Academic Officers to assist them in discharging their duties; communicating information between departments about academic malpractice as appropriate; and offering assistance to Academic Officers about the content of the warning letter appropriate to the stage reached.

LU Students' Union

Any student who is alleged to have been involved in an act of academic malpractice shall have access to LU Students' Union support and advice at all stages in the procedures that follow, and appropriate LUSU staff may accompany the student in any meetings or correspondence with the department or the Standing Academic Committee.

Standing Academic Committee

The Standing Academic Committee of the Senate shall:

  1. hear cases relating to first or second offences where the student does not accept the decision of the Academic Officer;
  2. hear cases relating to third and fourth offences.

Steps in the Procedure

The following steps shall be followed in the sequence set out below (as defined in the University Regulations, Appendix A, section 4.4.1). The steps may be concluded at any point in the procedure.

  • All academic markers shall make a positive effort to identify possible plagiarism and shall inform their students of the procedures for detection.
  • The academic markers shall, when suspected plagiarism has been identified, refer the relevant material to the course convenor for checking.
  • The course convenor shall annotate any plagiarised material and shall submit a report, including a hard copy of the source used by the student, to the Academic Officer.
  • The Academic Officer shall conduct an investigation of the alleged plagiarism and shall give the student an opportunity to discuss the allegation.
  • The Student Registry shall report to the Academic Officer whether the student concerned has previously been found guilty of academic malpractice.
  • The Academic Officer shall if necessary arrange a meeting of a panel to discuss the allegations further with the student, including any admission of plagiarism, and shall set out the likely penalties. The panel, if convened, shall be chaired by a non-member of the department nominated by the chairperson of the Standing Academic Committee and, in addition to the student and the Academic Officer, shall include either the academic marker or the course convenor, and may include a person nominated by the student as friend who will also act as a member of the panel.
  • If the Academic Officer concludes, on the basis of discussion under (iv) or (vi), that plagiarism has occurred, he/she shall apply the appropriate penalty without the use of discretion, and shall inform the student in writing.
  • The Academic Officer shall make a report to the Student Registry on a report form supplied for the purpose.

Scale of Penalties

First and second offences

The following scale of offences and related penalties shall be operated.

  • First offence . The Academic Officer shall determine whether action requiring a plagiarism warning has taken place.
  • Action requiring a plagiarism warning shall be defined as poor referencing, unattributed quotations, inappropriate paraphrasing, incorrect or incomplete citations, or up to several sentences of direct copying without acknowledgement of the source.
  • The academic marker shall indicate and set aside the sections involving the above problems.
  • Major first offence plagiarism shall be defined as copying multiple paragraphs in full without acknowledgement of the source, taking essays from the Internet without revealing the source, copying all or much of the work of a fellow student with or without his/her knowledge or consent, and submitting the same piece of work for assessment under multiple modules.
  • The student whose work has been detected as a major first offence shall be required to repeat and resubmit the work, and shall be eligible to receive only the minimum pass mark appropriate to the piece of work. If the student refuses or fails to repeat and resubmit the work, a mark of zero shall be recorded. The student shall in any case receive the appropriate warning letter.
  • Second offence: if a second alleged offence has been detected, the Academic Officer shall declare that a mark of zero has been awarded to the piece of work concerned, and that the student has no right of reassessment. The Academic Officer shall in addition send the student the appropriate warning letter, confirming the decision and advising the student of the consequences of any further offence.
  • If the student does not accept the decisions related to first and second offences, he/she shall have the right to appear in person before the Standing Academic Committee.
  • Third and fourth offences shall be considered by the Standing Academic Committee and shall be treated as a serious academic offence (under Statute 21).

Third and fourth offences

  • If the student has been found to have committed either a third or fourth offence, the Academic Officer shall refer him/her to the Standing Academic Committee with the recommendation that he/she be permanently excluded from the university.
  • If the Standing Academic Committee confirms the offence, the student shall have the right of appeal, to the Vice-Chancellor under Statute 21.
  • The Standing Academic Committee, having considered the evidence for a third offence, shall have the authority to confirm the recommendation for permanent exclusion or to impose one of the following penalties:

(i) to permit the student to repeat the work, subject to receiving only the minimum pass mark appropriate to the piece of work;

(ii) to award zero for the work in question;

(iii) to award zero for the whole coursework or dissertation;

(iv) to award zero for the unit or course module;

(v) to award zero as under (iv) and, where the inclusion makes no difference to the class of award, to recommend that one class lower than the one determined by the arithmetic be awarded;

(vi) to exclude the student permanently from the university, where the offence is detected before the final assessment is completed;

(vii) not to award the degree, where the offence is detected after the final assessment has been completed.

  • The student shall have the right of appeal under Statute 21 if either (vi) or (vii) are confirmed for a third offence.
  • The Standing Academic Committee, having overturned a recommendation for exclusion for a third offence, but a fourth offence having been detected, shall undertake a further hearing to consider the recommendation for the exclusion of the student from the university and/or the non-award of the degree.

The student shall have the right of appeal under Statute 21.

Ingredients of the Sanction System

Prevention

To reinforce the importance of education and prevention within this overall strategy, students will be treated leniently for a first offence. The written feedback they receive (the 'warning letter' below), supported by the widely publicised, robust and consistently applied detection system, and the transparent, consistently applied and increasingly serious "ladder of sanctions" (below), are designed to educate and deter.

The warning letter

For each offence the student will be sent a standard, stage-specific, University letter which -

  1. spells out what they have done wrong, and why it is wrong
  2. points them towards appropriate sources of study skills help
  3. reminds them of the need to discuss their work with academic staff if they are uncertain about how to avoid subsequent allegations of plagiarism
  4. warns of the serious consequences of subsequent offences, and spells out the sanctions that will be applied
  5. outlines the students rights

Evidence of plagiarism

In all cases, evidence must be provided by the marker to confirm that plagiarism has occurred. Where possible this should include the student's submitted work annotated and cross-referenced to original sources which have been plagiarised, accompanied by a hard copy of the original source (eg a print out of a source printed or web page, with complete URL and date viewed for web pages). For a first offence only, the evidence may take the form of a statement written by the student acknowledging that they have included plagiarised material in the submitted work.

Weighting of the assignment

Although there are arguments in favour of varying the sanctions depending on the relative weight of a piece of coursework within the overall assessment for a module, consistency and transparency of treatment for all plagiarism are paramount (for equity purposes, but also to reinforce prevention by deterrence).

Departments will be given some discretion in defining special status for particular assignments (particularly the dissertation, and particularly at Masters level), and for which the sanction system might be varied. All such cases, and the reasons for them, must be clearly documented in departmental or course handbooks.

Application and implications of the sanctions

Right to resit

In cases in which a student fails a module overall, because plagiarised work has been awarded a zero mark (second offence), the student forfeits the normal right of re-assessment in that module.

Multiple pieces of work

For the first offence only, if a student has submitted more than one piece of work for assessment at the same time, and plagiarism is detected in more than one of those pieces of work, this shall be defined as one "offence" (the first major offence). After the first offence, each piece of work in which plagiarism is detected will count as a separate offence.

Counting offences

"Second offence" means the next case of plagiarism to be confirmed after the student has received feedback on the consequences of the "first offence". "Third offence" and "Fourth offence" are defined relative to feedback from earlier cases of plagiarism.

Retrospective detection

Whilst a department has the right to retrospectively check for plagiarism in any coursework submitted by a student registered with the University, the sanctions should not normally be applied retrospectively (ie after it has been returned to the student). The University reserves the right to review work retrospectively, and apply appropriate sanctions, if there are reasonable grounds for doing so (eg whistle-blowing by fellow students). Existing University Regulations allow for the University to rescind or change the classification of a degree after it has been awarded.

Exam Board

The decisions and recommendations of the Final Exam Board will normally be regarded as the cut-off point beyond which allegations of plagiarism will not be considered, and past which no sanctions will normally be applied. If the plagiarism detection procedures are sufficiently robust, after an initial transition period (2 year max for most undergraduates) once this new framework is introduced, this should provide adequate security for the Final Exam Board decisions.

Right of appeal

If the student does not accept the decision of the Academic Officer (for first and second offences), s/he can opt to appear before the Standing Academic Committee. The burden of proof is on the University to show that plagiarism has occurred. In all cases in which exclusion is the penalty for plagiarism (ie third and fourth offences), the student has a statutory right of appeal under Statute 21.

Reporting of plagiarism histories

Each department will have discretion to decide whether plagiarism should be mentioned if a request is received (particularly from another University or a professional body) for an academic reference for a Lancaster graduate, or whether to report plagiarism to professional bodies

Amnesty on graduating

A Lancaster undergraduate with a record of plagiarism, who subsequently registers as a postgraduate student at Lancaster , will be given a 'plagiarism amnesty', for equity of treatment with other postgraduate students from elsewhere.

Chris Park on behalf of the Plagiarism Working Party

27 September 2005

AR/2003/488 (revised)

THE UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER

MALPRACTICE IN UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE EXAMINATIONS AND COURSEWORK

Approved by the Senate on 28 May 2003.

These regulations also form Appendix two of the Examination Regulations of the University and the appendix to Ordinance 7.

A.1 Definition

A.2 Guidelines for use of Electronic Devices in University Examinations

A.3 Procedure in Cases of Suspected Malpractice in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Examinations

A.4 Academic malpractice (plagiarism) in coursework (undergraduate and postgraduate)

A.5 Appeals against penalties for academic malpractice

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