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Academic misconduct

 

Academic misconduct includes the following:

  • Cheating or acting dishonestly in any academic assessment (for example in an exam or an assignment).
  • Assisting or inciting another student to cheat or act dishonestly.
  • Plagiarism.

The University is committed to academic integrity.  Further information is provided here by the University.

Plagiarism and cheating

Plagiarism is defined by the University as 'taking and using someone else's ideas or manner of expressing them and passing them off as his or her own by failing to give appropriate acknowledgment of the source to seek to gain an advantage by unfair means.' 

You commit plagiarism if you:

  • copy, paraphrase or summarise all or part of any document or piece of work (including written, audio, visual, computer-based material, programming data or code, or a work of art) without acknowledging the source;
  • use somebody else's ideas, results or conclusions without acknowledging the source; or
  • present another student's work as your own.

Note that copying any phrase, sentence or paragraph word-for-word from another source without using quotation marks to indicate the verbatim text, constitutes plagiarism despite the source being acknowledged through referencing.

Any of the following may constitute cheating, collusion or acting dishonestly:

  • using another student’s assessment work when completing an assessment task that is required to be done individually;
  • sharing your assessment work with another student who is undertaking the same assessment task that is required to be done individually;
  • communicating (e.g. texting) with another person during a take-home exam to check you are ‘on the right track’ with your answer, or
  • accessing and using an online student paper, or purchasing a partially or fully written paper, some or all of which is used in your own assessment work.

Note that the above applies not only to the use of students’ assessment work in a subject in the same session, but also to work shared across sessions. In this regard, it is advisable that you avoid making your assessment work available to concurrent or future students, including refraining from uploading your work onto websites or social platforms for shared content. Doing so may make you liable for facilitating the plagiarism or cheating of other students.

The UTS Student Rules outline the penalties for student misconduct, which may include a zero or fail result for the assessment task or the subject, or, in more serious cases, suspension or exclusion from the University.

Additionally, as law students you should be aware that any misconduct during your tertiary legal studies could affect your admission to practise law. The Legal Profession Uniform Admission Rules 2015 require applicants to disclose if they have been the subject of disciplinary action, and to provide relevant official reports of such disciplinary action.