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What is
Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is defined as the presentation of
another person’s thoughts, writings or inventions as one’s own. It
includes the unacknowledged direct copying, or the close paraphrasing, of
another person’s work taken from published or unpublished sources, without
indicating that the material has been taken from those sources.
In
addition to published texts and course material, sources include tutor
handouts, and copies of slides, as well as material from electronic
sources such as the Internet. They also include any company material such
as financial reports and other similar documents.
It is also
unacceptable to engage the help or services of others to undertake any
part of your assessments, which you then subsequently submit as your own
work.
When submitting an assignment all programme members are asked
to sign a submission form, in which they indicate the work is their
own.
In all instances where plagiarism is suspected by a marker,
and reported to the Manager, Assessment Services, there will be an
automatic investigation of the report by members of the College’s staff.
This could lead to your being required to make a personal
presentation of your work, in the form of a viva voce examination, at the
College.
Plagiarism is an academic offence. If it is
proved disciplinary action is taken and the most likely outcome is
expulsion from the College.
How is Plagiarism
identified?
Plagiarism is identified in several ways, one of
which is by tutors involved in the assessment process. Assignments
submitted by individuals from one intake will quite often be marked by the
same marker, or a small group of markers, so similar assignments could be
identified as each is read during the assessment process.
All the
markers who work with the College have access to the standard learning
materials provided by the College, as well as the College website and
other on- line resources. As subject specialists, all markers will know
the texts that are likely to be referred to and referenced in the
bibliography, and would recognise any material lifted from such
publications.
Markers may also consider issues such as writing
styles and can utilise certain methods for detecting changes in style,
formatting and use of grammar for example. In addition, the College has a
suite of plagiarism software that can check work in a variety of ways, for
example by comparison with work previously submitted for assessment and
with externally generated work or published material.
Referencing Material
All material, which is the
work of another author and is included in any work submitted to the
College for assessment, must be clearly referenced. There are a number of
systems for referencing academic work: the Harvard system is described in
full in the Dissertation Tutorial Resource and there
is another document within the Report Writing Classroom on the website
which refers to this too.
Guidelines on Assessment and
Collaboration for Individual Assessments
College programmes
rely substantially on a supportive learning environment within individual
intakes and groups. The following guidelines have been formulated in order to ensure that programme members understand
the limits to and expectations of collaboration within the assessment
process.
College Rules and Regulations
The
College would deal with any cases of suspected plagiarism within the
following regulations, which are applicable to all MBA
programmes:
AR5: Assessment Relating to Taught Programmes of
Study
AP5: Procedures and Guidelines for Assessment Relating to
Taught Programmes of Study
Academic Registrar/Chairman,
Assessment Regimes Working Party
July 2006
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