What is academic misconduct?
Academic misconduct refers to behaviours or actions taken by students that undermine the integrity of an assessment or exam, where the student has attempted (even if they have not succeeded) to gain an unfair advantage.
Broadly speaking, behaviours or actions that could constitute academic misconduct include:
- Plagiarism – including intentionally copying, or paraphrasing someone else’s work too closely to the original without acknowledging that person’s work, or simply unintentionally failing to use citations or references properly;
- Cheating;
- Fabricating documents and data;
- Being dishonest;
- Collusion;
- Impersonation;
- Academic sabotage;
- Soliciting and paying for or offering to pay for external assistance for an academic assignment, more so known as ‘contract cheating’;
- Using artificial Intelligence.
Penalties for academic misconduct
Universities do not take kindly to students trying to undermine the integrity of their assessments, exams and courses. If a student has been accused and found guilty of academic misconduct, there are a range of consequences they could face, such as:
- Failing the assessment or exam;
- A reduction of marks for the assessment or exam;
- Failing the unit/subject;
- Removal of positions held with the university;
- Cessation of scholarships or financial aid;
- Suspension;
- Exclusion from the course (academic exclusion);
- Expulsion from the university;
- Revocation of qualification.
How can you reduce the risk of academic misconduct allegations?
It is important for students to understand there can be very serious academic and financial consequences for findings of academic misconduct.
Some things students can do to try to mitigate the risk of falling foul of misconduct allegations are:
- Make sure you properly reference your sources in your assessments and exams.
- Seek assistance from the university if you do not understand the course content.
- Run your assignments through a plagiarism checker before submitting your work.
- Properly prepare for your exams so there is no pressure or temptation to try to cheat.
What do I do if I receive academic misconduct allegations?
If you have been accused of academic misconduct (whether you are guilty or not) it is important to be aware of your rights and to thoroughly review and understand the university’s policies and procedures, so you can put your best case forward to either challenge the allegations or minimise the penalties that might be applied.
We recommend you seek assistance with drafting the response to the academic misconduct allegations to best protect your position. We often see students come to us after unsuccessfully challenging the misconduct allegations and seeking our assistance with applying to have the academic misconduct finding reviewed or appealed. At the review and/or appeal stages however, the arguments that can be made are usually much narrower and is often limited to the material that was in front of the decision maker at the time of the academic misconduct decision, or new evidence not available at the time of the decision. Whereas the initial response to the academic misconduct allegations provides for a much wider scope of arguments or comments that can be made.
How can Blossom Lawyers assist with your academic misconduct matter?
Blossom Lawyers is experienced in drafting responses to academic misconduct allegations and/or review/appeal applications for students to lodge with their university.
Often students involved in academic misconduct matters are understandably stressed and anxious, and often focus in their responses on the emotion of the matter and not the facts and university policy that will be considered when a decision maker is investigating and deciding on allegations of academic misconduct, meaning that their response is often not persuasive.
The benefit in having Blossom Lawyers assist is that we know the information and material that is relevant to the allegations or findings so we can focus on the issues and evidence that the decision maker will take into consideration, which will be more persuasive to the decision maker when challenging the allegations or penalties.
If you are a domestic or international student and you have received academic misconduct allegations or a decision on academic misconduct allegations has already been made, contact Blossom Lawyers on 07 5636 5598 or via email at admin@blossomlawyers.com.au to see how we can help.
