Academic Discipline: A Primer

Donald McGillivray, 3 Nov 2010

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University rules

• www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/quality/credit/creditinfoannex10.html

• http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/quality/credit/appendix1annex10flowchart.pdf [Flow Chart]

Who Does What?

• Donald McGillivray, Chair, School Discipline Committee

• Jo Dunlop, Secretary to the Committee

• Sam Betts, Assistant to Jo on Discipline Matters

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What is a Breach of Academic Discipline?

• Cheating in exams / influencing examiners

• Plagiarism

reproducing in any work submitted for assessment or review (for example, examination answers, essays, project reports, dissertations or theses) any material derived from work authored by another without clearly acknowledging the source

• Duplication of materialreproducing in any submitted work any substantial amount of material used by that student in other work for assessment, either at this University or elsewhere, without acknowledging that such work has been so submitted

• Conspiring to reproduce the work of others (improper collaboration)

• Falsification of date / evidence

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Warnings and penalties

• Formal warnings Apply at all stages (including PGT) Do not attract a penalty (Stage 1) or the work which is not plagiarised

may be marked (Stages 2 and 3 and PGT) • If this mark is below 40%, resubmission may be allowed for a capped mark

of 40%. Are not mentioned in references / transcripts Are ‘normally’ coupled with a resubmission opportunity

• But this may be difficult to offer in practice

• Minor offences Dealt with by the Chair of the SDC alone Maximum penalty – mark of 0% Unless the student challenges the decision or penalty -> full SDC

• Serious offences Require a panel of 3 academics to sit as the DDC Max penalty – termination of registration

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Solicitors’ Regulation Authority rules

• www.sra.org.uk/documents/students/student-enrolment/student-enrolment.pdf

• ‘When you enrol as a student, you must declare any information that might affect your suitability to be a solicitor. This includes: Any instance of cheating in examinations or plagiarism

during a course of study’

• ‘Every case is considered on its own merits. You will be asked to supply written confirmation of the relevant issues and you may be asked to appear before an SRA adjudicator to explain your situation’

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SRA and KLS practice

• We will write to the SRA setting any offence in context, e.g. ‘a single offence in an otherwise unblemished record’

• We will mention the penalty imposed in the context of the available range of penalties

• We will mention any mitigating factors that we feel are relevant

• No KLS student has – yet - been refused professional admission because of plagiarism

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University Guidance

• http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai/students/index.html

• This links to Guidance for students

Guidance for staff• www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai/staff/index.htmlIncludes guidance on • avoiding plagiarism in assessment design etc• Guidance on using TurnitinCase studies and other guidance etc – see

www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai/staff/plaghand.pdf (although this is directed to staff it may be very helpful to students because it goes through ‘worked examples’)

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KLS procedure (I)

• https://www.kent.ac.uk/law/staff/learnandteach/academic_discipline.html

• This gives general guidance and links to the KLS Discipline case sheet – fill this out if you suspect that the work breaches the rules on academic discipline, and pass the sheet, the work and any other relevant evidence directly to Sam Betts

https://www.kent.ac.uk/law/staff/documents/Academic-Discipline-case-sheet.doc

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KLS procedure (II)Please……

• Tell us why you are referring the work

• Give the work a mark for original content (if above 0) It is not your responsibility to propose a penalty – this is for the DDC But the DDC cannot mark the work for merit

• Notify the student that you are doing so

• Pass to Sam

You do not need to:

• engage the module convenor (unless e.g. in a difficult or borderline case you wish to)

• If you do refer a problematic case to the convenor but do not receive a swift reply, just refer to us with a note telling us – we will liaise with the convenor

• Provide copies of any work copied from (unless you feel that the DDC would not be able to access this easily either from Turnitin or from URLs you provide)

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Borderline cases

• If in doubt, please refer – the DDC prefers to educate and has no special desire to punish

• Where you feel that a student’s work is problematic but does not merit an allegation being raised, there are 2 choices:

Notify the student and provide them with a copy of the rules and the guidance (the DDC can help with this); or

Notify the DDC (without formally raising an allegation) and ask that, if the DDC agrees that no allegation should be made, that the DDC notify the student and provide the rules and guidance

What is ‘original content’?

• Those parts of the work which are not plagiarised.

• Easier to state than to identify – exercise your judgement (and helpful to tell us briefly, on your case sheet, why you have reached this mark)

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One student’s work similar to another

• Student’s work may strongly match another student from their cohort, or a student from a previous year

• KLS Guidance – ‘talk and think together but write separately’ www.kent.ac.uk/law/currentug/documents/groupwork.rtf

• The student from the previous year may be the student (repeating) resubmitting their own work

This is still plagiarism, but unlikely to attract a very serious penalty

• Where the work matches, raise the allegation against both (or all) students

The DDC may receive representations and may (with an informal warning) drop the allegation against a student whose work has been copied from and where an explanation is given

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Mosaic plagiarism (‘patchwriting’)

• Where a student’s writing combines fragments of their own language with unacknowledged fragments from their source material. The ensuing text is a mosaic of acceptable paraphrase and argument plus unacceptable plagiarism.

• May arise from

Poor note taking

Rushing to complete an assignment

Unfamiliarity with language and need for support

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Second language / cultural differences

• May be a factor pointing to lack of previous experience with referencing / citation…

• May account for patchwriting….

• But cannot be accepted as reasons for not conforming to, or appreciating, rules on plagiarism

• ‘The University regards plagiarism as a strict liability offence’

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Mark reduction v penalty

• Full and proper referencing is one aspect of the quality of a student’s work

• If you don’t raise an allegation but tell a student that their work is poorly referenced, you can of course reflect this in your mark

• But penalties – beyond reductions for poor practice - are for the DDC

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Any questions?

• For procedural matters contact Jo Dunlop (j.l.dunlop@kent.ac.uk) x 3774 or Sam Betts (s.l.betts@kent.ac.uk) x 7044

• For academic matters contact Donald McGillivray (d.mcgillivray@kent.ac.uk) x 4293