About academic honesty

The following document provides a short introduction to academic honesty issues and how the University deals with academic misconduct.

Academic honesty: key principles

1. All students and staff are members of The University of Auckland’s academic community, which shares values such as trust, mutual respect, honesty, integrity and fairness.
2. Work students submit for grading – in coursework and examinations – must ultimately be their own work, reflecting each student’s learning and performance.
3. Where work (ideas, statements, data, illustrations or examples) from other sources is used in coursework, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced.
4. Cheating is a serious academic offence. Marks and qualifications acquired through cheating are acquired dishonestly and do not truly represent the student’s abilities. The grades and qualifications that students earn legitimately through their own efforts are de-valued if other students cheat.
5. The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat.

Types of academic dishonesty or cheating

Academic dishonesty can take many forms, including:

1. Plagiarism.

• Plagiarism means using the work of others in preparing an assignment and presenting it as your own without explicitly acknowledging – or referencing -- where it came from. Plagiarism can also mean not acknowledging the full extent of indebtedness to a source. Work can be plagiarised from many sources – including books, articles, the internet, and other students’ assignments. Plagiarism can also occur unconsciously or inadvertently.

Examples of plagiarism

• Copying or quoting directly a sentence, sentences, paragraphs from any printed or electronic work created by another without proper acknowledgement or referencing
• Paraphrasing the original source without proper acknowledgement or referencing
• Copying images, sounds, tables, graphics, research results, computer programmes, statistical data, ideas, concepts or text without proper acknowledgement or referencing
• Cut and paste from a source or sources and presenting it as original work
• Copying from unauthorised notes or another student during exams
•  Using information and material from a website without attribution.

Submitting someone else’s work or ideas without acknowledgement or attribution is not evidence of your own grasp of the material and cannot earn you marks.

Students should also consult the University’s page concerning plagiarism called Referen©ite.

This page provides information on how to avoid plagiarism, which information needs to be referenced, and advice on quoting, summarising and paraphrasing.

2. Copying from another student

• This includes copying done with or without the knowledge of another student. It also includes using someone’s coursework that had been submitted in a previous year – at any educational institution. Examples would include:
• Copying all or part of someone else’s coursework assignment or examination
• Allowing someone else to copy all or part of your assignment or examination
• Having someone else do all or part of an assignment for you
• Doing all or part of someone else’s assignment for them

3. Making up or fabricating data.

• This includes using false data in the writing up of laboratory reports, or using made-up quotations from interviewees.

4. Submitting the same, or a substantially similar, assignment that you have done for assessment in more than one course.

5. Using material obtained from commercial essay or assignment services, including web-based sources.

• Buying or otherwise acquiring essays, answers or ideas (in whole or in part) and using them in a coursework assignment is unacceptable.

6. Impersonating someone else.

• This includes representing another student at a test or examination, or arranging for someone to represent a student.

7. Misrepresenting disability, temporary illness or injury or exceptional circumstances beyond your control, and then claiming special conditions.

8. Asking or letting a ‘third party’ help in preparing your assignment in ways not authorised by the University.

• Students should consult the document ‘Use of Third Party Assistance in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Coursework: Guidelines for Students’ for guidance as to what is permissible concerning receiving help from a ‘third party’ (i.e., someone other than your teachers)

9. Using work done as part of ‘group study’ or a ‘team’ project in unauthorised ways.

• This includes a group of students working through to the solution of what is intended to be an individual’s assignment.
• Students should consult the document ‘Guidelines: Conduct of Coursework’ for further guidance.