Origin: Meredith Coney, Secretary AMC

This report includes details of all major cases, and all minor cases where an allegation of misconduct was upheld, in the academic year 2007-08 (including SAP 2008).

1. Membership of Committee

The Academic Misconduct Committee (AMC) during 2007-08 was composed as follows:

Dr PL Byrne (Chair)

Dr JA Dearnley

Dr DR Twigg

Miss S Driscoll

2. Incidence and Type of Academic Misconduct (Appendix I)

In total there were 206 cases of Academic Misconduct (AM), this was an increase of 59 on the total for 2006-07. 141 of these cases were plagiarism-related (including collusion and/or inappropriate collaboration with other students). The remaining 65 cases related to offences which took place in examination halls.

2.1 Examination Hall AM

There was a steep rise in the number of examination hall offences, as compared to 2006-07 (65 compared to 27). Of this rise, the number of Major Offences dealt with by the AMC more than doubled (from 24 to 52 cases). The remaining 13 cases were deemed to be ‘technical’ offences (i.e. where candidates were found with prohibited materials in their possession, which were of limited or no relevance to the examination being sat, and where there was no evidence of any real attempt to obtain an unfair advantage),and were re-classified as minor and dealt with by the relevant Head of Department.

As in previous years, the most common forms of examination hall AM were: (i) notes written in a dictionary, on a pencil/calculator-case, or on a hand (25 cases) (ii) possession of crib notes (21 cases), and (iii) possession of an inappropriate calculator or other programmable device (Mp3 player, mobile telephone etc) (5 cases).

The rise in reported cases is significant in comparison to the figures from the last few academic years where the total number of cases had been dropping. This rise could be caused by a number of factors including the experience and ability of the invigilators staffing the examination hall to identify more cases or a reflection of the increase in the number of exams being sat.

2.2 Plagiarism and other forms of AM

There was a slight increase in the number of plagiarism-related cases of AM as compared to 2006-07 (141 compared to 120), however the number of Major cases, dealt with by the AMC, decreased by 47% (from 17 to 9 cases). Cases were dealt with as major or minor offences, depending on their perceived seriousness. Most cases involved candidates submitting, as their own work, un-referenced material from published (internet, textbook etc) or unpublished (other students’ work) sources.

3. Analysis of Penalties Imposed for Academic Misconduct (Appendix II)

In 2007-08 (as in previous years) the penalty most commonly imposed was the reduction of marks in the module in which AM was found. This penalty was imposed in 72.3% of cases (77.2% of minor offences, and 61% of major offences). Most of the remaining cases resulted in the issue of a formal reprimand (23.8% of the total).

4. Analysis of Incidence of Academic Misconduct by student characteristics against Total Population (Appendix III)

Appendix III provides an analysis of the incidence of academic misconduct against the total population (i.e. all students who were registered to be assessed in at least one module in 2007-08).

Given the relatively small number of cases, care should be taken not to overstate minor differences between the characteristics of those charged with AM, particularly those comparisons with the total population data for each year. It is also important to note that some of the characteristics identified (particularly ethnicity, fee status and course level) are closely linked, given the make up of the student population.

Data are provided by department as well as aggregated for the University for information, but given the very small number of students involved in each department in relation to the total population, it is again difficult to draw conclusions from these figures.

Notwithstanding the above, it is noteworthy that a high proportion of Major Offences in the examination hall were committed by students of Chinese ethnicity from the Business School and the Department of Economics. It may be productive in terms of reducing the incidence of academic misconduct, to provide these students with additional information/awareness-raising sessions on what constitutes academic misconduct within an examination hall.

5. Appeals

In 2007-08, there were four appeals against penalties imposed for minor offences (all plagiarism), and six against penalties imposed for major offences (two were plagiarism cases, and four were exam hall offences).

Of the appeals against minor offences, two were dismissed, one was upheld and one referred to the AMC. With regard to the upheld appeal, the penalty was reduced (from the reduction of marks in the module to a formal reprimand) as the Dean considered the initial penalty too severe for a first year student who seemed to have genuinely misunderstood how to reference properly

Of the appeals relating to major offences, five were dismissed. In the remaining case the AMAC received additional information which led it to amend the penalty initially imposed by the AMC.

Author – Meredith Coney

Date – May 2009