Aims of assignments

In many subjects, students undertake assessment tasks in the form of assignments. The setting of assignments is intended to promote a number of educational aims, including: furthering each student's learning of the subject, particularly the acquisition of practical skills; providing a means for staff to assess each student's learning; providing feedback to the student on his or her progress in learning; and providing feedback to staff on the effectiveness of their teaching.

These aims can be subverted if students deceive staff about the authorship of their work.

Acceptable behaviour

Using sources

Whenever anything from someone else's work is used, it is standard practice to indicate exactly where the information comes from. Acknowledgment is achieved by using a standard system of referencing, such as footnotes, end notes, the Harvard system, etc. The Guide to Writing Assignments (available from the Co-op Bookshop) explains how to use all these standard systems of reference.

Students may also access the BELL Program Assignment Writing Guide online to assist with the preparation of essays, reports, case studies and other forms of written assessment:

Collaboration

In some cases assignment guidelines may permit or require students to cooperate in developing a solution to part or all of an assignment. This may occur formally when a staff member assigns students to groups and indicates which components of the assignment they are to work on as a group and which components they are to work on individually.

It may also occur informally. For example, some assignments may involve an 'ideas gathering' phase followed by an 'execution' phase. Students may be permitted to collaborate informally on the preliminary phase(s), but be expected to work completely individually on the subsequent phase(s). For example, it may be deemed acceptable for one student to discuss with another student (or other person) the specifications of the task so as to determine the requirements. Whether this collaboration could extend to subsequent phases would depend on the assignment guidelines; often, collaboration in subsequent phases is not permitted.

Depending on the type of assignment and degree of collaboration permitted it is possible to define several categories of collaboration:

• individual effort (the student is required to work on all phases entirely by himself or herself)

• group effort (the student is required to work on all phases as part of a formal group), and

• mixed effort (the student is required or permitted to work on some or all phases as part of a formal or informal group).

Unless assignment guidelines specifically state otherwise, a student should assume that an assignment requires a completely individual effort. The forms of cooperative collaborative behaviour that are acceptable under most circumstances are:

• discussing assignment specifications with another student (or other person) with a view to clarifying what is required

• getting help from another student (or other person) on technical matters that are not directly part of the assessment task (e.g. how to use some facility provided by the computer system, such as the editor)

• getting advice from another student (or other person) to debug a program; this is a common occurrence in computing, and

• obtaining help from a tutor.

Generally, what distinguishes the acceptable cases of collaborative behaviour from the unacceptable ones is the physical exchange of material between two students. It is acceptable to discuss topics and seek advice from fellow students; it is not acceptable to exchange copies of each other's work, even if it is only for reference. By exchanging actual copies of your work, you are either creating the opportunity for other students to use and submit that work as their own, or you are using another person's individual effort as the basis of your own work. Such behaviour will be treated as student misconduct (see below).

Student misconduct

The three areas of unacceptable behaviour listed below are considered  to be forms of academic misconduct. Such behaviour will result in a charge of misconduct, as defined in the UTS Calendar. Penalties for proven cases of student misconduct range from a written reprimand to exclusion from the University.

You are advised to familiarise yourself with the rules relating to Discipline and Appeals for Students online in section 16 of the University Handbook. Further information can be found on good academic practice in the University’s Assessment Procedures Manual.

1. Outright lying

This is seen most often in computing assignments, where the computation does not run, or runs incorrectly, yet the output handed in is correct. The output has been 'tailored' using a word processor in an attempt to fool the marker. Lying is never acceptable behaviour.

2. Plagiarism

In most university assignments you are expected to refer to the ideas of people with "authority" in the subject area. Referring to ideas from books, journal articles, internet sites etc shows readers that you have researched your topic and considered a range of evidence. But when you use ideas from these sources ─ either by directly quoting (copying word-for-word) or rewording from the source (paraphrasing & summarising), you need to reference the source. This shows that you acknowledge the original authors of the theories, ideas, findings and materials that you have used.  If you do not reference your sources, or if you copy work from others, you are taking someone else's words or ideas and trying to pass them off as your own. This is plagiarism. Plagiarism is academic fraud.

Plagiarism includes

• Quoting, rewording or summarising ideas from books, journals, newspapers, internet sites, the text book, lecture notes or other sources without referencing the original source;

• Copying and pasting phrases, sentences or paragraphs from material on the internet without referencing the original source.  (Cutting and pasting chunks of material with acknowledgement is not plagiarism but is generally poor academic practice.) ;

• Downloading or purchasing assignments from internet sites and submitting them under your own name;

• Copying from another student or submitting an assignment done by another student under your own name.  This includes submitting something which you have modified or paraphrased but is substantially someone else's work.

Students who are found to have plagiarised will be penalised in line with university policy.  Penalties may include failing the assessment task or failing the entire subject.  Serious cases of plagiarism may attract more severe penalties.  Allowing your work to be plagiarised is allowing cheating and will also be penalised.

Learning with other students is a valuable part of university.  Learning collaboratively ─  studying in groups, discussing assessment topics, debating ideas, sharing some resources, or reading and giving feedback on other students' draft assignments ─ is not plagiarism.  If you are doing a group assignment, then it must be prepared and submitted by the students belonging to your group.   If you are not clear about whether something might be plagiarism, consult your lecturer or tutor.

3. Collusion

Collusion occurs when a student combines with one or more other students (or other persons) to produce a common essay or solution to part or all of an assignment, disguises the shared origin of the solution, and submits the solution as his or her own individual work. Allowing another student access to your work is also regarded as collusion.

Students caught submitting work that is identical or contains sections that are identical to that of another student will be charged with academic misconduct, as defined in the UTS Handbook. Students who have allowed another student to access their work will also be charged under the same rule, as by giving your work to another student, you are assisting them to cheat.

Collusion is regarded as a form of cheating and is never acceptable.