Every participant is expected to approach his/her work with integrity
and honesty.
Academic misconduct is defined at V-M Group as: "any
activity or practice engaged in by a student that breaches
explicit guidelines relating to the production of work for
assessment, in a manner that compromises or defeats the purpose
of that assessment. Participants must not engage in academic
misconduct. Any such activity undermines an ethos of ethical
scholarship."
In assignments we are seeking to read your own work in order to
assess your knowledge, skills and future learning needs;
plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct hinder both
fair grading and education.
Plagiarism is the presentation of other people's ideas or
statements (published or unpublished) as if they were your own.
The other people may be published scholars, lecturers, participants
or others. If the work is published, publication may have taken
place in print or electronically or have been transmitted on
radio, television, film or video. Plagiarism may consist of
word-for-word copying, close paraphrasing (i.e. changing a few
words or the order of words or phrases) or misleading or
missing referencing.
You may wish to quote selected statements made by another
scholar in order to pursue a line of argument or discuss a
claim. This is good scholarly practice. However, the discussion
that follows should be your own. Above all, you must be honest
about which words and ideas are yours and which are not.
Moreover, extensive quotation from or paraphrasing of other
people's work is not desirable for your own education. These
practices provide a very limited view of what you think and of
what you know. A close paraphrase of published works is NOT
what we are looking for in assignments. One of the main aims of
V-M Group is to develop your capacity for leadership,
independent thought and analysis, so we are looking for you to
express ideas and to sustain arguments in your own prose.
Unintentional plagiarism may result from poor note-taking
practices when working on an assignment or careless referencing
when writing the assignment. When taking notes, you should
clearly indicate which words are your own and which are not,
to avoid confusion later. You should also ensure that your
notes clearly indicate the sources of statements and ideas.
When writing your assignments, remember that all quoted
statements must be indicated with quotation marks and properly
acknowledged with a reference. Where you have taken specific
data, ideas or arguments from a particular source, even where
you are describing them in your own words, you must also be
sure to indicate where they came from, with a reference.
For work prepared and submitted as a group, you must adhere to
the procedures and requirements described in your unit outline.
Where plagiarism is detected in a group assignment, only the
student or students responsible will be penalised.
It is V-M group policy that all individual work submitted for assessment must be accompanied by a signed cover sheet or,
where there is no cover sheet, a signed declaration that you are
aware of V-M Group plagiarism policy,
that the work is your own, that the work complies with the
relevant guidelines for that assessment item, and that the work
may be electronically scanned for detection of plagiarism.
Group assignments must be accompanied by declarations signed by
each group member.
It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand the
requirements of each assessment item, as stated in your unit
outline. If you are unsure about the extent of quotation, the
extent or nature of paraphrasing in your assignment or
referencing requirements, you should consult your program facilitator.
Academic misconduct includes all attempts at cheating
(whether they are successful or not), for example through:
- misrepresenting or fabricating data or results or other
assessable work
- "recycling" work submitted in one unit for an assessment item
in another unit
- breaching rules specified for the conduct of examinations in
a way that may compromise or defeat the purposes of assessment
collusion and inappropriate collaboration
Participants may wish to discuss an assignment together, however,
written work submitted by an individual participant must be that of
the participant identified as the author. If you have used the work
of other participants you should indicate the fact and provide
details.
Penalties for academic misconduct are applied in accordance
with the seriousness of the misconduct and any prior record of
misconduct. All instances of academic misconduct are centrally
recorded as part of a confidential record, which does not
appear on your official academic transcript.
A facilitator who finds any level of plagiarism in an assignment is
required to notify V-M Group immediately. If you
are suspected of plagiarism, you will be advised no later than
the time you would expect to collect your marked work.
Evaluations of plagiarism by V-M Group are made with reference to the quantity and
nature of the plagiarism. Generally, plagiarism will be
classified as Level 1 (minor) where less than 10% of the
substantive content of a written work is plagiarised; Level 2
(moderate) where 10%-25% of a work is plagiarised; and Level 3
(major) where more than 25% of the work is plagiarised.
However, relevant factors relating to context and intent will
also be considered.
If your work in any unit is found to contain major plagiarism,
you will be deemed to be not yet competent for the unit. If you have
a prior record of academic misconduct, more severe penalties
will be applied.
If you have no prior record of academic misconduct, are in your
first 48 points of study and minor plagiarism is found in your
work (or in your first 24 points of study and moderate
plagiarism is found), you will be required to revise and
resubmit your work or where that is not practicable, complete a
similar assessment for marking purposes, within 7 days of
notification. You will also be counselled by your facilitator.
Assessment completed under this provision will be
marked according to the usual criteria for the unit. If you do
not resubmit or complete the assessment, as required, it will
be treated as if you did not submit a piece of work for that
assessment item, and you will receive a mark of 0 for it. If
further instances of plagiarism are found in subsequent work,
penalties range from the deduction of marks, the award of a
grade of zero for the assignment in which the plagiarism has
been discovered or failure of one or more units, to suspension
or exclusion from the V-M Group Program.
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