Poor academic practice and academic misconduct

If a student fails to achieve good academic practice, they may be guilty of either poor academic practice or academic misconduct. If academic misconduct occurs, the issue of whether a student intended to commit academic misconduct or whether it occurred by accident is not relevant. However, intentional and accidental misconduct may be dealt with in different ways, for example via varying sanctions or processes. Once again, the advice is to always check the explanations on assessments and if there is anything you do not understand, please seek the advice of a lecturer.

Poor academic practice

Poor academic practice may constitute non-fully referencing material, or being careless with referencing and attribution of sources. Where poor academic practice has been identified markers will use the assessment feedback process to give you feedback to improve your academic practice. Poor academic practice may result in a grade penalty. Repeated poor practice without improvement despite feedback from lecturers may result in a charge of academic misconduct.

Academic misconduct and plagiarism

Academic misconduct is any action that produces an improper advantage for a student in relation to his/her assessment or deliberately and unnecessarily disadvantages other students. It can be committed intentionally or accidentally. Examples include: plagiarism, cheating in an examination, collusion, impersonation, falsification or fabrication, duplication or self-plagiarism, ghosting, misrepresenting sources, commissioning work and disruption. Plagiarism is defined by the Academic Council of the University of Galway as “the act of copying, including or directly quoting from, the work of another without adequate acknowledgement”.

Turnitin

Technologies such as Turnitin may be used to support academic judgement in cases of suspected academic misconduct.  Turnitin is a web-based application that provides a number of functions that facilitate online assignment management including collection, marking, and feedback. It is also used to check electronic assignment submissions for ‘originality’. It does this by comparing the text of a submitted assignment against text from a wide range of electronic material including journals, websites, and other students’ work, including work from many universities. It is most commonly used to assist in the detection of academic misconduct (such as plagiarism or collusion) in an assignment after it has been submitted. Turnitin can also be used formatively to help you learn about the importance of good academic practices and good referencing.

Generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT) 

Students should resist any attempts to take ‘shortcuts’ or engage in any form of misconduct (copying, plagiarism, submitting materials produced by GenAI, etc). If a student feels unable to complete the assessment for whatever reason, they should discuss this with their lecturer, counsellor, SU Officer or appropriate person. They should only be seeking credit for work which they have produced themselves, and that they are responsible for correctly referencing and acknowledging sources and resources used in their work.

Penalties

If a member of staff suspects academic misconduct, in the first instance local procedures will be followed which focus on preliminary investigation and/or potential resolution. The student will be invited to discuss the issue with the member of staff and the programme director. The purpose of this meeting will be to determine wither academic misconduct has taken place and to recommend a sanction.

Sanctions include:

• Minor first instance: marking work with appropriate mark reductions for affected sections (which may mean marking the work excluding the affected sections). In addition a written warning may be given.
• Major first instance or subsequent minor instance: a fail (0%) for the assessment component with the right to remaining resit(s) retained; and/or having resit capped at 40 per cent.
• Major first instance or subsequent instance (major or minor): a fail (0%) for the module with the right to remaining resit(s) retained, with mark capped.

Subsequent, repeated incidents may be reported to the university disciplinary committee and disciplinary action may be pursued.

Examples of academic misconduct

A non-exhaustive list of types of academic misconduct includes:

1. Plagiarism: passing off the ideas or words of someone else as though they were your own. It applies equally to the work of other students as to published sources and can include:
   1. Submitting, as one’s own, an assignment that another person has completed
   2. Downloading information, text, artwork, graphics or other material from the internet and presenting it as one’s own without acknowledgment.
   3. Quoting or paraphrasing material from a source without acknowledgment
   4. Copying from other members while working in a group
   5. Contributing less, little or nothing to a group assignment and then claiming an equal share of the marks
2. Cheating in an exam: either by copying from other students or using unauthorised notes or other aids.
3. Collusion: students working together to create and submit a similar or identical assignment or assessment, without authority from their tutor or School
4. Impersonation: where a person assumes the identity of another person with the intention of gaining unfair advantage for that person.
5. Falsification or fabrication: inventing or altering data or references.
6. Duplication or self-plagiarism: Preparing a correctly cited and referenced assignment from individual research and then handing part or all of that work in twice for separate subjects/marks, without acknowledging the first assignment correctly.
7. Ghosting: Submitting as your own work that has been done in whole or in part by another person on your behalf, or deliberately making or seeking to make available material to another student for it to be used by the other student. Investigating the possibility of using another person’s work can also be counted as academic misconduct.
8. Disruption: preventing an assessment from being conducted in an orderly and appropriate manner. 

University regulations

Plagiarism, when found to occur, is subject to the University Code of Practice for Dealing with Plagiarism. It is available online here.

A comprehensive guide to understanding and avoiding plagiarism is available on the Library webpage here.