Donald McGillivray, 3 Nov 2010
Academic Discipline: A Primer
University rules
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www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/quality/credit/creditinfoannex10.html
http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/quality/credit/appendix1annex10flow
chart.pdf [Flow Chart]
Who Does What?
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Donald McGillivray, Chair, School Discipline
Committee
Jo Dunlop, Secretary to the Committee
Sam Betts, Assistant to Jo on Discipline
Matters
What is a Breach of Academic Discipline?
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Cheating in exams / influencing examiners
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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
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Duplication of material
reproducing 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
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Conspiring to reproduce the work of others (improper collaboration)
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Falsification of date / evidence
Warnings and penalties
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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
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Minor offences
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Serious 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
 Require a panel of 3 academics to sit as the DDC
 Max penalty – termination of registration
Solicitors’ Regulation Authority rules
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www.sra.org.uk/documents/students/studentenrolment/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’
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‘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’
SRA and KLS practice
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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
University Guidance
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http://www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai/students/index.html
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This links to
 Guidance for students
 Guidance for staff
• www.kent.ac.uk/uelt/ai/staff/index.html
Includes guidance on
• avoiding plagiarism in assessment design etc
• Guidance on using Turnitin
Case 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)
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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/Academi
c-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)
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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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 It is not your responsibility to propose a penalty – this is for the
DDC
 But the DDC cannot mark the work for merit
Borderline cases
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If in doubt, please refer – the DDC prefers to
educate and has no special desire to punish
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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
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What is ‘original content’?
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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)
One student’s work similar to another
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Student’s work may strongly match another student from
their cohort, or a student from a previous year
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KLS Guidance – ‘talk and think together but write
separately’
www.kent.ac.uk/law/currentug/documents/groupwork.rtf
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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’)
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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
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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’
Mark reduction v penalty
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Full and proper referencing is one aspect of the
quality of a student’s work
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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
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But penalties – beyond reductions for poor
practice - are for the DDC
Any questions?
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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