University of Malta
Faculties of Science and of Information and Communications Technology
Guidelines on Plagiarism
prepared by
Prof. Victor Axiak (Faculty of Science),
Dr. Johann Briffa (Faculty of ICT),
and Dr. Chris Staff (Faculty of ICT)
June 2007
The Faculties of Science and of Information and Communications Technology are
committed to ensuring that awards made to students are based on work that they
have done themselves. Therefore, they take cases of plagiarism, self-plagiarism,
collusion, and other acts of academic fraud and dishonesty very seriously.
The two faculties are also committed to ensuring that students are given the
opportunity to learn how to avoid accidental plagiarism, although ultimately the
student is responsible for his or her actions.
These guidelines are intended to define plagiarism and collusion (other acts of
academic fraud and dishonesty are/may be defined elsewhere); outline procedures
for handling cases of suspected plagiarism and collusion; and finally, give a tariff of
penalties to works that are considered to contain plagiarism or collusion. An Annex
to this document contains general guidelines on good writing practice to help avoid
plagiarism.
Part 1: Scope of these Guidelines
Part 2: Definition of Plagiarism
Part 3: Procedures for Handling Cases of Suspected Plagiarism and Collusion
Part 4: Tariff of Penalties
Annex 1: Guidelines for Avoiding Accidental Plagiarism
Part 1: Scope of these Guidelines
a. Students are to familiarise themselves with these guidelines which may help them
avoid accidental plagiarism. Examiners are to refer to these guidelines to determine
how to handle a case of suspected plagiarism.
b. Individual departments are to publicise these guidelines, and are encouraged to
give seminars on how to avoid plagiarism.
c. In certain cases, students may be required to work in groups and to share
resources and even data. Whenever such group-work is expressly called for and
approved by the relevant tutor, the permitted level and kind of collaboration shall be
made clear to all students before commencing the assigned work. Unauthorised
collaboration may result in a charge of collusion.
d. At the beginning of the course students are to sign a declaration that all the work
submitted as part of their course will be their own work, except where acknowledged.
Some departments may require such declaration to accompany each work submitted
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for assessment. Where such a declaration is required work shall not be marked, and
shall receive a mark of 0, if the declaration is missing or incomplete.
e. All work submitted for assessment shall be accompanied by a machine-readable
copy that will be retained up to one year following a student's graduation. If the
machine-readable copy is not submitted, or is found to be different from the physical
copy of the submission, then the physical copy shall not be assessed, and shall be
awarded a mark of 0.
f.
These guidelines are meant to complement the General University Regulations
regarding plagiarism.
Part 2: Definition of Plagiarism and Collusion
a. Plagiarism is "the unacknowledged use, as one’s own, of work of another person,
whether or not such work has been published" (Regulations Governing Conduct at
Examinations, 1997).
b. Whenever a student submits work for assessment (whether or not that work
counts towards an award), the student is submitting it in his or her own name. The
faculties assume that the work submitted is the student's own work, except where it
is acknowledged through the proper use of quotation, citation, and reference (cf.
Annex 1).
c. Additionally, the work must not consist of or contain work that the student has
already submitted for another study-unit at this or another institution. The only
permissible exception is when this is duly acknowledged and where the explicit
permission of the examiners of both study-units has been sought and obtained.
d. Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to:
1. Verbatim copying of text from another source without enclosing the text in
quotation marks and including a full and proper citation (i.e. giving a citation
and giving full references details in a references section).
2. Close paraphrasing (without using quotation marks) whether or not a full and
proper citation is given. Close paraphrasing involves merely changing a few
words in the original text.
3. Paraphrasing without a full and proper citation.
4. Using previously published images, graphs, etc. without full and proper citation
(in this case, the citation should also appear in the image's caption).
5. Using the ideas of others, or using another's work as a source of inspiration
without giving a full and proper citation.
6. Using the words of others (a secondary source), a close paraphrase, or a
paraphrase, to describe work of another person or persons (primary source/s),
whether or not you have read the primary source/s, without giving a full and
proper citation to the secondary source.
7. Using data and or results of experiments, etc., performed by another person,
and presenting them without full and proper citation.
8. Paying a third-party to produce, or otherwise acquiring from a third-party, the
work in whole or in part.
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In the examples above, the work of another person includes but is not limited to
the work of another student following the same course or of a student who had
previously followed the course.
e. Self-plagiarism is defined as submitting, in whole or in part, and without
permission, the same piece of work two or more times, when this has already been
assessed and credit given. If the same or a modified piece of work is a resubmission for the same study-unit, this is not self-plagiarism. For example, a
student who has failed a study-unit may be allowed to re-submit an assignment for
assessment (with or without modifications). The student, however, is not allowed to
submit an assignment already assessed, or in the process of being assessed, for
another study-unit without explicit permission from the tutors or examiners
concerned.
f. Collusion occurs when two or more students collaborate to produce a work, where
such collaboration is not permitted. The exact limitations on permitted collaboration
depend on the nature of the work involved and on its assessment, and should be
made clear to all students (cf. Part 1c). The examples below indicate the range of
acceptable behaviour, but should not be taken as a comprehensive list:
1. In proctored examinations, it is expected that students work individually, and no
sharing of ideas or material is allowed; only reference to permitted resources is
allowed (such as the text book in an open-book exam).
2. In take-home examinations, it is expected that students work individually, and
no sharing of ideas or material is allowed; however, reference to publicly
available information is permissible (with appropriate citation).
3. In individual assignments, students may be permitted to communicate orally
such that the problem assigned is understood; however, students are not
permitted to share material.
4. In group-work, it is generally accepted that the work involved will be divided
equitably between the students working together; however, students are still
expected to collectively take responsibility for the content of their work, and
therefore to know and understand the work produced by their team-mates. It is
not permissible to have students who do not make a sufficient contribution, or
who fail to allow their team mates to contribute. Also, communication between
teams is generally not allowed, except for oral communication such that the
problem is understood (as in point 3 above).
5. In individual project work, each student is assessed on his or her own
contribution; however, the nature of the work often demands assistance from
others. Such assistance must be acknowledged, so that the student’s individual
contribution may be properly assessed.
g. Minor cases of plagiarism: a case of plagiarism may be considered minor if:
1. it is the student's first offence;
AND
2i. it is clearly a case of "poor referencing". For example, if some text, appearing
in any chapter or section of the report, has been copied verbatim but not placed
in quotation marks, or has been closely paraphrased or paraphrased, but there
is no full and proper citation. The source is not cited in the text, but the sources
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are listed in the references section;
OR
2ii. some or all of the plagiarised sources are not listed in the references section
and there is less than 5% plagiarism overall, the plagiarised parts are all in
chapters or sections of reports/essays/etc. that are considered to be
"supporting" chapters or sections (e.g., introduction, conclusion, literature
review, background).
h. Serious cases of plagiarism: a case of plagiarism is considered serious if:
1. this is the student's second or subsequent plagiarism offence, whether in the
same examination session or in a different examination session, but not if the
second plagiarism offence occurs in the same piece of work, unless that work
has been re-submitted for assessment; the original submission was found to
have been plagiarised; the procedure outlined in Part 3 was followed; and the
student was informed about the outcome of the investigation;
OR
2. the plagiarism occurs in "contributory" chapters or sections of a report (e.g.,
methodology, evaluation, results, data) or computer programs, works of art, or
works of a similar nature that are clearly meant to be the student's main
contribution to the assessment of the assignment;
OR
3. collusion has taken place;
OR
4. the student has paid a third-party to produce the assignment in whole or in part
or has otherwise acquired the assignment from a third-party in whole or in part;
OR
5. the student has self-plagiarised in whole or in part;
OR
6. a combination of the above.
Part 3: Procedures for Handling Cases of Suspected Plagiarism and Collusion
1. Each department shall have a Departmental Board of Discipline. The
Departmental Board of Discipline shall be composed of:
the Head of Department as Chair, (or the deputy Head, if the Head is also the
examiner);
a senior academic member of the department;
and, the examiner/s of the study-unit.
A Departmental Board of Discipline may only consider cases of plagiarism in student
submissions for study-units that the Department offers.
2. When an examiner/reader finds a case of suspected plagiarism or collusion:
In the procedure that follows, plagiarism also refers to collusion. Please note that
it is possible for a student submission that has been produced through collusion to
also be plagiarised.
i. Unless the degree and/or nature of plagiarism present makes it difficult or
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impossible to assess the work (see ii c), the examiner should continue to
assess the work as though it does not contain plagiarism. In any case, the
examiner shall not contact the student to determine if plagiarism has occurred.
ii a. In the case of suspected plagiarism: The examiner shall outline the
plagiarised parts of the student submission, the nature of the plagiarism, the
original source/s, and should indicate which plagiarised source/s, if any, is/are
provided in the references section of the submitted work.
ii b. In the case of suspected collusion: The examiner shall specify the parts of the
student submission on which collusion is suspected, the nature of the collusion,
and the names or candidate numbers (as available) of student/s who are
suspected of colluding.
ii c. If a student submission contains more than 3 non-contiguous plagiarised/
colluded items (which may be images or parts of images, graphs, tables,
phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or similarly quantifiable parts of the submitted
work), or if they are contiguous but no two contiguous items are plagiarised
from the same source, or if the total amount of plagiarised/colluded content in a
report exceeds 3 A4 pages or one minute in the case of audio, music, or video
content (regardless of the length or duration of the piece of work) then the
examiner may abandon the assessment and outline the plagiarism detected up
to that point. An examiner may make use of automatic plagiarism detection
software.
iii. The information prepared in (ii), which shall include information about any
automatic plagiarism detection software that was used, shall be communicated
to the Board of Discipline of the Department that offers the study-unit, who will
discuss the allegations, decide if there is prima facie evidence of plagiarism, and
decide if the plagiarism is minor or serious in terms of these guidelines. If the
allegation of plagiarism is not substantiated, then the student will be awarded
the grade given in (i) (assuming that the examiner has given a grade), or else
the examiner will be asked to continue assessing the work. No record of the
allegation will be kept. This does not preclude that the examiner may find
evidence of plagiarism or collusion in other parts of the work if the assessment
had been abandoned in terms of (ii).
iv. If the plagiarism is minor then the Departmental Board of Discipline may
impose a penalty in accordance with the tariff (cf. Part 4) and inform the student
in writing, and Faculty Board, of the findings and the penalty imposed. At this
point the student may (a) accept or (b) appeal the decision. In the event that a
student appeals, the case is referred to the Faculty Disciplinary Board of the
Faculty with which the student registered for the study-unit.
v. If the plagiarism is serious, then the Departmental Board of Discipline will a)
compile a complete written report detailing the extent of plagiarism or collusion
that has occurred in the student submission, and b) refer the case to the
Faculty Disciplinary Board of the Faculty with which the student is registered for
the study-unit and recommend an appropriate penalty in terms of the tariff given
in Part 4.
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vi. A Faculty Disciplinary Board shall convene a meeting to investigate a case as
referred to it by a Departmental Board of Discipline. The student will be
informed in writing at least 10 days before the Faculty Disciplinary Board
meeting, where this is practical. The student may bring along another member
of the student body as a witness or for support. The letter informing the student
of the meeting will contain, as an enclosure, a copy of the report and the
recommended penalty from (v). The student may reply in writing admitting the
charge, which letter must be delivered in person to the Faculty Office before the
planned date of the meeting, or else the student must attend the meeting in
person. Failure to show up without just cause may result in further disciplinary
action in terms of the University Discipline Regulations 1996.
vii. If the Faculty Disciplinary Board receives an admission in writing or during the
meeting from the student, or if the Board considers that plagiarism has
occurred to the extent outlined by the Departmental Board of Discipline, then
the Faculty Disciplinary Board will inform the Departmental Board of Discipline,
the student, Faculty Board, and the Examinations Disciplinary Board of its
decision and of the applicable penalty as recommended by the Departmental
Board of Discipline. If the Faculty Disciplinary Board finds that plagiarism has
occurred to a lesser extent, then it may lower the penalty recommended by the
Departmental Board of Discipline, and inform the Departmental Board of
Discipline, the student, Faculty Board, and the Examinations Disciplinary Board
of its decision. Where the penalty to be addressed is sufficiently serious (as
indicated in Part 4), the Faculty Disciplinary Board shall instead refer the case
to the Examinations Disciplinary Board along with its recommendations and
findings.
viii. The student has the right of appeal, in which case the Faculty Disciplinary
Board must be informed in writing within 5 days of the decision being
communicated to the student.
ix. If a student is found to have plagiarised then a copy of all written
communication to and from the student and the report produced in (iv) and (v),
where applicable, will be placed on the student's academic file. If a student is
found to have not plagiarised, then the letter acquitting the student of the
charge will be kept on file, but any reports produced will not be.
x a. The Faculties are committed to ensuring that all awards made to a student
are made based on the student's own work. Detecting plagiarism normally
requires significant resources of time and effort. To ensure that all awards are
made safely, a Departmental Board of Discipline that finds sufficient cause to
suspect a student of serious plagiarism in any single student submission may
so inform the examiners of other submissions made by the student. Each case
of plagiarism discovered during the same examination session will be
considered a separate case, regardless of the consequences for the student.
x b. A Faculty Disciplinary Board that has a case referred to it and that finds a
student guilty of serious plagiarism may request that the student's prior
submissions be re-examined for evidence of plagiarism. Each resulting case
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will be considered a separate case of suspected plagiarism, regardless of the
consequences for the student.
xi. If a graduated student is found to have plagiarised or colluded, the report shall
be forwarded to the Examinations Disciplinary Board for investigation. The
Examinations Disciplinary Board may request to Senate that an award already
made be revoked, or the class or category of award be reduced.
xiii. The Faculty Disciplinary Board shall annually present to the Faculty Board a
synoptic report of the number of cases of plagiarism, the nature of the
plagiarism, the numbers of students penalised according to each tariff, and the
number of cases of suspected plagiarism that have been dropped. The report
shall normally be presented at the first meeting following the end of the
academic year, so that any measures that need to be introduced or modified
may be in place prior to the start of the next academic year.
Part 4: Tariff of Penalties
Depending on the nature and extent of plagiarism, the following sanctions shall be
applicable (note that the sanctions are not necessarily mutually exclusive):
The following may be administered by the Departmental Board of Discipline or
higher:
1. Formal Reprimand – to be used only in minor cases (cf. Part 2g)
2. Reduction of grade – to reflect the grade of the component if the plagiarised
parts are disregarded; to be used only in minor cases (cf. Part 2g), where the
extent of plagiarism is minimal. Note it is possible to award a failing grade.
3. Cancellation of grade (to 0%) for the component (to be taken as a single unit
of work submitted for assessment, such as a complete assignment or report,
even though only part of this may be plagiarised) - to be used only in minor
cases (cf. Part 2g), where the extent of plagiarism is significant, but only as
long as the component’s contribution to the study-unit is less than or equal to
20%
The following may be administered by the Faculty Disciplinary Board or higher:
4. Cancellation of grade (to a 0 F) for the whole study-unit, with or without the
possibility of a re-sit – to be used only in serious cases (cf. Part 2h), or where
the extent of plagiarism is significant and the component’s contribution to the
study-unit is more than 20%
Sanctions that may be administered by the Examinations Disciplinary Board or
higher are described in regulation 6 (c) i – iv of the Regulations Governing Conduct
at Examinations, 1997, and are copied here for convenience:
“(i) cancellation of any examination;
(ii) cancellation of all or a part of the examination papers taken during the
same session of examination;
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(iii) suspension of the student’s academic or other University privileges,
benefits, rights and facilities for a period not exceeding two months. During
the period of suspension the student shall not be entitled to enter or remain on
any property or premises of the University;
(iv) the Board may recommend to Senate either a suspension of up to an
academic year or the expulsion from the University.”
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Annex 1: Guidelines for Avoiding Accidental Plagiarism
The best way to avoid accidental plagiarism is to i) take accurate notes, and ii)
always remember to cite information sources, sources of inspiration, and others who
may have helped, and to back up any claims made. Taking notes properly can also
improve report-writing skills.
Give yourself enough time to complete a task. All too frequently, the excuse used is
"I didn't have enough time to paraphrase it properly because of all the other
assignments/exams/my cat was sick (delete as appropriate)". Although it is generally
considered bad practice to be over-reliant on direct quotation, at least you cannot be
accused of plagiarism if you put direct quotations into quotation marks and give them
a full and proper citation.
Remember that the onus is on students to adopt good practices to avoid accidental
plagiarism, and that the Faculty will not accept ignorance of good practice as a
defence for plagiarism.
A. Taking Notes
One of the biggest causes of accidental plagiarism is not taking enough care when
taking notes. Always write down the full citation or reference details of any paper
read and from which notes have been taken. These will need to be included in the
references section of the report (see B. Writing Reports). If in your notes, you write
down a phrase or more, or unusual terminology, that is verbatim from your source,
then place it in quotation marks and, if the quotation is from a book, rather than from
a paper, write down the page number too. If what you have written is not verbatim
compare it to the original. Does it look very similar in structure, except for a few
words that have been changed? Have you accidentally changed the original author's
meaning? Try paraphrasing it again until you are satisfied with the result. If you
cannot paraphrase it well it, then leave it as the original quote, surrounded by
quotation marks. When you use these notes for your assignment, you are likely to
generalise your observations, but it is essential that you know whether your notes
are the words of the original source or not.
If the paper you are making notes about contains statements or observations about
work reported in another source, and you wish to make note of these observations,
then the paper that you are taking notes from is the secondary source, and the paper
the secondary source refers to (about which you wish to take note) is the primary
source. You are always encouraged to read primary sources directly, but if, for some
reason, you are unable to, then your notes should make a clear distinction between
the primary and secondary source. In particular, you could write, "According to [the
secondary source], [the primary source] marks the first attempt to solve this
problem". It would be quite incorrect for you to simply write, "[the primary source]
marks the first attempt to solve this problem", even if you read the primary source
directly. This is because you share the same opinion with the secondary source, and
referring to the secondary source demonstrates that you are aware of it. This can
only help you, not hinder you, because it provides evidence for the claim that you
want to make. In particular, if it turns out that you make the claim about the primary
source as though you were not influenced by the secondary source, but you refer to
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the secondary source for other information, then it would be quite reasonable to
assume that you are deliberately trying to hide the influence that the secondary
source has had on you.
B. Writing Reports
A report is usually a logical sequence of claims. You claim that some problem exists;
you claim that you know of an appropriate solution for it; you claim that there have
been previous attempts made by others to solve the problem; you explain how your
solution works, and you make claims about your own solution compared to the
solutions of others. An unsubstantiated claim is a claim without evidence to support
it. Evidence to support your claims can be provided either by referring to the same
claims substantiated by others, or because you have the data and results to back up
your own, original, claims.
If you rely on other sources to provide the evidence for any claims that you make,
then you need to inform the reader where the original claims, and evidence
supporting them, are made. You can do this by including a citation immediately
following the claim in our report. The citation is a reference to an entry in the
references section of the report. The citation can take a number of forms, e.g.,
(Axisa, 2000), [22], [Axi2000], etc. The citation style you use should be the style
recommended by your Faculty or Department, or the style commonly used in your
discipline, and you should use it consistently. The citation refers to an entry in your
references section. Reference entries (or, simply, references) are complete
bibliographic details about where the item is published. Information that must be
provided includes: year of publication; authors' names; title of the publication; in
which other publication it appears (if necessary); in which country and by whom the
publication was published. Other information may also be necessary, depending on
the nature of the publication (if it is a painting, video, an internet-based publication,
etc.). To see what information should appear in a reference, check the details for the
citation style you are using. Additionally, if you make the claim using the words of the
other author (verbatim), then you must use quotation marks around those words in
our text.
There is a difference between a references section and a bibliography. The
references section contains details of all (and only) those sources that you have
cited (made reference to in your report). A bibliography contains other material that
you are familiar with that you recommend as further reading to your readers, but that
does not contain information to support the claims that you make in your report
(otherwise, cite them and add them to your references section). It is highly unlikely,
then, that a bibliography will appear in an academic piece of work, and so you should
avoid using one unless you are instructed otherwise.
Sometimes, you may wish to make a claim that you know you have read
somewhere, but you cannot remember the source. At the time you read it, it did not
seems significant or memorable, so you didn't make a note of it, but now that you are
writing up your assignment you want to make reference to the information. Basically,
if you cannot find the source of a claim, then you should not use the claim in your
report!
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If you need to include images, figures, graphs, charts, photographs, and anything
else that is not strictly text in a report, and you are using an unmodified version of the
original (i.e., it is identical) then the caption should include the words "From [the
citation]", and cite the source as explained above. If you modify the original
(including redrawing it, with or without removing or adding components), then the
caption should include the words "adapted from [the citation]". In the body of your
report, you should indicate what has been changed.
You should keep the amount of direction quotation from a single source to a
minimum (no more than one or two sentences), and you should also limit the number
of direct quotations from different sources to no more than a few overall. However,
there is no limit to the number of sources you can paraphrase and reference to fully
substantiate your claims. This demonstrates that not only are you good at finding
relevant information, but you understand it well enough to explain it in your own
words.
Finally, how do you express “common knowledge”. Do you need to cite the fact that
the Sun rises in the East? That Abraham Lincoln was assassinated? That Paris is
the capital of France? These facts are called “common knowledge”. They are called
common knowledge because it is assumed that the overwhelming majority of people
know these facts. If most people know these facts, then there is no need to cite
them.
Sometimes, the difficulty is knowing whether or not some fact is well known enough
to be considered common knowledge. It also depends on who is the target audience
of your work. For instance, most people in the academic community nowadays know
that Tim-Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, so there is no need to refer to
his seminal paper any more in anything that you write. You can simply refer to the
World Wide Web, if you are describing it in relatively simplistic terms, and using your
own words to do so. However, although many people might know that HTTP (the
Hypertext Transfer Protocol) exists (because it appears at the beginning of most
URLs) it is not necessarily the case that the overwhelming majority of people, in
academia generally, know what it does. In this case, if you are describing HTTP,
then even though you might know HTTP inside out, you still need to refer the reader
to a primary source whenever you make a claim about it (unless the claim is your
own, original observation, and you provide the data to back it up in the same report).
In the hypertext community, however, this would not be necessary, because it is
common knowledge in that community. Of course, in the early days of the World
Wide Web, indeed, up until about the late 1990’s, it was still necessary to refer to
Tim Berners-Lee’s original article about the World Wide Web whenever there was a
reference to it, even in the hypertext community.
So how do we know when something becomes common knowledge? If you see a
similar claim being made in several other academic papers, without a reference,
then you know it is considered common knowledge. If in doubt, then give a full and
proper reference for the claim. It is better to give a reference for something that is
considered to be common knowledge, than to fail to give a reference for something
not considered to be common knowledge. And please remember that although a fact
may be considered to be common knowledge, the way it is described may not be.
For example, You can say “The Sun rises in the East” because you can make that
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observation for yourselves every morning at dawn, and because that exact same
claim is made in several places elsewhere without being placed in quotation marks
and cited. However, you cannot copy text from Tim Berners-Lee’s seminal paper
about the World Wide Web and paste it into your own report without using quotation
marks and giving a full and proper citation for it. You must still give a full and proper
citation for the words of others, unless those exact words are themselves common
knowledge.
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