Academic Standards

1. www.cass.city.ac.uk
Whose work are you handing in?

2. Lloyd Diwell
Academic Quality and Standards
l.v.diwell@city.ac.uk

3. What does this presentation cover?
• Academic Practice – plagiarism
• Turnitin and you
• Student Disciplinary Code – Academic Misconduct
• Consequences of academic misconduct
• Need help?

4. Good Academic Practice
• It is about making sure that anyone who reads your work can
easily identify your thoughts and ideas on a subject, and can
distinguish these from the thoughts and ideas of others.
What is good academic practice
• Demonstrating your academic ability is required to succeed in
academia at any level. It should be practiced from the very start
and enables the University to grade your work and level of
academic development in an appropriate and fair manner
An essential academic skill
• You will be marked according to the rules of assessment in the
UK, therefore don’t rely on the what you’ve been told back
home.
UK assessment culture

5. Cass operates zero tolerance of…
• A wide-ranging term: it can cover everything from
poor study skills and a lack of understanding of what
is expected at the level of study, to straightforward
fraud in the form of intentional cheating.
Plagiarism
World War II ended in 1945
Quotations Ideas or Theories
Bears hibernate in the Winter Specific facts (not common
knowledge)
An email or online
forum post
Do I need to acknowledge everything?
Other student’s work

6. ■ A student finds they do not have sufficient time to answer an assignment properly and decides
to ‘borrow’ (i.e. copy) some words or sections from a book, website or colleague. This is
plagiarism.
■ A student lacking confidence in their English skills believes that whatever they write will never
be as good as the material in their course book or from other sources. They decide it is better to
copy it out than try to write an answer in their own words. This is plagiarism.
■ A student gets a friend or family member to answer an assignment question for them because
they have expertise in this area and so will get better marks than if the student tries to do it
themselves. This is still plagiarism, but it is also intentional fraud.
■ A student comes across the ‘right answer’ to part of their assignment on a website, and cuts and
pastes this into their assignment. This is intentional plagiarism.
■ A student doesn’t quite understand what they have to do to answer one of their assignment
questions but has found the relevant section in their course book. They copy out the section but
change a few of the connecting words, change the order of a couple of sentences and
add in another couple of examples to make it their own work. This is plagiarism.
Poor academic practice – some examples

7. The Department of Information Science at City has excellent
communication at many levels, individually, through research groups and at
the departmental level.
Rhind (2002, p 1) argues that "we need to establish good communication at
the individual, research group and departmental level".
It has been argued that Information Science is a subject area that covers a number of different
domains; therefore excellent communication is needed over a number of levels - at the individual
level, within research groupings and at a departmental level (Rhind, 2002).
Referencing Examples
The following is taken directly from an editorial by David Rhind in the Journal of
Information Science (Rhind 2002, p.1):
Information Science is an inter-discipline. The corollary of that is that we need to
establish good communication at the individual, research group and departmental
level with specialists in other disciplines. This is a strong feature of Information
Science at City, especially in health, pharmaceutical, legal and geographic sectors.
Rhind (2002) states we need to establish good "communication at the individual,
research group and departmental level".
Misplaced Citation - PlagiarismParaphrasing with no ref - PlagiarismCorrect CitationAcceptable Paraphrasing

8. Referencing
Make sure that you know how to use the work of others
Put quotes in
inverted commas
Reference the source
of data and ideas
Put all your sources
in the bibliography
Always
Use cheat sites
Hand in someone
else’s work as your
own
Put your signature
on the coversheet if
what you are signing
is untrue
Never
Use cheat sites
Hand in someone
else’s work as your
own
Put your signature
on the coversheet if
what you are signing
is untrue
Never

9. Turnitin
■Checks students' work for improper citation or potential
plagiarism by comparing it against a huge text comparison
database.
■All major pieces of written work will be checked for plagiarism
using Turnitin
■A random selection of additional pieces of written work will be
checked for plagiarism through Turnitin.
■These are then further analysed by both professional and
academic staff to confirm potential cases of plagiarism
Please note: Students don’t have access to turnitin,
so it is important to cite and reference correctly

10. Originality Score – A
cumulative percentage
that compares the
assignment with existing
resources
Matches list – a list
of existing sources
that match with text
and formulae in the
assignment
Text – highlighted sections
correspond to matches in
the list

11. • Example of poor referencing and no
paraphrasing
• Student had to re-present their work for a
capped grade

12. • Example of a direct copy-and-paste from
an external resource
• Deliberate attempt to deceive the markers
and Business School
• Student was awarded zero and failed the
degree

13. Write Check
https://www.writecheck.com/static/home.html

14. Student disciplinary code
All students are bound by the university’s code which covers:
Academic misconduct
Conduct towards staff and fellow students
Wider implications of your actions as a student
An expectation that you are familiar with the Programme Handbook,
University Regulations and Procedures and read correspondence
from the University
Student Charter – We are City
http://www.city.ac.uk/student-administration/student-charter-
we-are-city

15. Consequences
Going back to
School
Range and
toughness of
subjects
Time
management
Family
demands
Health
Job demands
You will have to
explain yourself
to a panel
You may lose
marks
You may have
to repeat work
Your file will contain a note that
will be seen by anyone writing a
reference
You may be
asked to leave
the university
You will not feel
very proud of
yourself

16. Where it can all go wrong
Those who end up explaining themselves to misconduct panels
usually fall into one of the following groups:
The
inherently
dishonest
The
uninformed
Those
who cut
corners

17. ■ Your Moodle Course Hub
■ Harvard Referencing System
■ School/University resources:
Cass learning-resource-centre_citing-references
Studywell
cite them right online.
http://www.skills4studycampus.com
Need help?

18. Talk to someone
■ Recognise you are under pressure
■Tell someone and get help:
■Speak to a friend of family member, or
■You can speak to your Programme Officer or Online Tutor who will be
able to direct you to the most appropriate avenue for support.
■If you have any questions or concerns please contact your Programme
Officer who will help you address them.

19. Cass Business School
106 Bunhill Row
London EC1Y 8TZ
Tel + 44 (0)20 7040 8600
www.cass.city.ac.uk