Our Academic Conduct Regulations include a definition of Academic Misconduct.
Our detailed handbook on academic misconduct guides academic staff through the process of Academic Misconduct cases. Below is a summary of some of the key steps
Identifying Misconduct
There are a variety of ways students might breach the academic conduct regulations. Turnitin, Inc. has helpfully developed a spectrum describing these different ways. Many of these are also covered in our student guidance video about Academic Misconduct.
Guidance on how to report a concern or allegation can be found on our Academic Misconduct Process Chart. This sets out questions to consider, which pathway to follow and provides the embedded links to the relevant pro-forma and referral forms required.
You should gather evidence of academic misconduct and there are some tools which can help support this.
Turnitin Originality Reports
Turnitin is available for all students to use and the University’s expectation is that all modules will include Turnitin for both formative and summative use, unless the module assessment does not include any written material. With the transition to Blackboard Ultra in 2024 this is extremely easy to implement as Turnitin is integrated into assignment submission points. Students are provided with guidance on how to interpret the similarity report via the student facing guidance page for Turnitin. A staff – facing version of this information is also available, along with a screencast. Additional guidance from Turnitin is online.
It is important that Turnitin is made available for all students to use since failure to do so can severely hinder our efforts to identify contract cheating and to find evidence to substantiate suspicions of contract cheating.
Students can also access Turnitin Draft Coach in the online version of Word, which allows them to check their work against the Turnitin database without that work being added to the database. Turnitin provide guidance for instructors around Draft Coach
Authorship
The Authorship product by Turnitin can help provide evidence of contract cheating through analysis of different writing samples submitted by the same student. You can request an Authorship Report using this form.
Bringing an allegation
The next step after gathering evidence is to bring forward an allegation of academic misconduct. Guidance on bringing an allegation is covered in the Powerpoint presentation - Making an Allegation (PPTX, 1.3MB).
There are three types of meetings that can be involved in an allegation:
Preliminary meeting
You should hold a preliminary meeting when you have no clear evidence of cheating but you are concerned about the provenance of an assignment.
The purpose of the meeting is for the tutor to reassure themselves that the student is familiar with and understands the content of the assignment they have submitted, and have therefore met the learning outcomes of the module. The discussion should be between a tutor and a student. It should be positive and should focus on the academic content. The sorts of questions depend on the assignment but could include things like:
- Can you tell me about your overall argument in this assignment (or the overall purpose of the assignment)? Tell me in two sentences what this is about.
- Can you tell me about this detail here (pick a particular page and paragraph/a particular segment)?
- Can you tell me about this aspect of the scholarship? (e.g. you mention this article by this scholar – what is the importance of their work?)
The preliminary meeting is not the place to present suspicions or allegations. It is just for the tutor to reassure themselves that the student has produced the work.
Academic Concern Meeting
You should hold an Academic Concern Meeting when you have evidence that a student has breached the academic integrity regulations in a minor way. The criteria for an Academic Concern Meeting might include:
- Small amount of plagiarism
- Likelihood of some unacknowledged AI use (but unsophisticated)
- Inexperienced student
- No prior record of misconduct
- An attempt at referencing but inadequate
If it looks like there has been collusion, a serious attempt to mislead the tutor, or that a substantial amount of the assignment has been created by another person/service/bot, then a Concern meeting is not appropriate.
The purpose of the Academic Concern meeting is to encourage a student to improve their academic skills and scholarship. It should be framed as a positive academic skills-focused intervention.
Academic Conduct Panel
You should make an allegation for an Academic Conduct Panel when you have evidence of academic misconduct. This can be under any of the definitions of misconduct: plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, contract cheating, concerns over authorship, trading material and writing for others, fabrication or falsification of data, exam cheating, unethical practice, dishonest practice.
You need to provide documentary evidence to support your allegation, and the panel may not uphold an allegation if there is insufficient evidence.
The purpose of the meeting is to ensure that there is equity in the treatment of students for breaching academic integrity regulations, and to maintain the rigor of the academic awards at Sheffield Hallam by making sure students do not gain credit for assignments that have not been created with integrity.
