The University of Southampton

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Academic Integrity Tutorial

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Breaches and Penalties 2

Slide 13/17

Details from University Calendar

All faculties have an academic integrity officer who keeps a formal record of any breaches of academic integrity.

A summary of penalties for breaches of academic integrity are shown below. For full details see University Calendar Section IV Appendix 1 http://www.calendar.soton.ac.uk/sectionIV/academic-integrity-procedures.html

Stage 1 : Minor Incidents

First recorded incident of:

  • Small amount of plagiarism which may be the result of poor academic practice
  • Collusion leading to limited similarity between submitted assessment items.

a) Provide feedback and issue a warning to be retained on the student’s file. Award a mark appropriate to the work submitted taking account of the fact that not all the work is that of the student.

Stage 2 : Intermediate Incidents

Any repeat incident

  • Moderate amount of plagiarism/extensive plagiarism with strong evidence eg: matched text
  • Collusion leading to significant similarities between submitted items
  • Copying
  • Recycling
  • Minor breaches of examination regulations, eg: inadvertent use of the wrong type of calculator

(a) Provide feedback and issue a warning to be retained on the student’s file. Award a mark appropriate to the work submitted taking account of the fact that not all the work is that of the student.

(b) Require the student to re-submit the same piece of work for a capped mark (should the student refuse the re-submit the work a mark of 0 will be awarded).

(c) Award no marks for the piece of work.

(d) Award a fail grade for the module/unit concerned, with or without the right of resit.

Stage 3 : Major Incident

  • Extensive plagiarism
  • Serial plagiarism – any
  • Ghosting/use of essay bank services
  • Impersonation
  • Falsification
  • Deliberate breaches of examination regulations; eg: unauthorised use of notes in examination rooms

(d) Award a fail grade for the module/unit concerned with or without the right of resit

(e) Failure in the year as a whole

(f) Reduction in degree class

(g) Termination of programme

(h) Deprivation of award*

*Please note that penalty (h) can only be imposed on the authority of Senate.