What is academic misconduct?
Academic misconduct is the current description of what in the past might have been called cheating. Here are some examples.
- Taking unauthorised materials into an exam venue (notes/phones/smart watches etc.)
- Copying from another student. This would include closely paraphrasing another person's work by simply changing a few words or altering the order of presentation.
As a department, we encourage discussion of assignment problems amongst students, but the submitted work should be in your own writing. If in doubt, simply acknowledge discussions before writing out your version (e.g. in discussions with A. N. Other we found the following method for solving this problem).
If you allow another student to copy some or all of your work, even if you consider this is helping them, you may be considered to have cheated alongside the student who copied the work. - Plagiarism, i.e. presenting someone else's work as your own without proper acknowledgement. This is an issue in modules with essays of projects. Individual modules, such as MA262 Scientific Communication, have excellent guidance on how to properly reference academic sources.
The Library also has a self-enrolled online course on Avoiding Plagiarism, which anyone can take.
- Misuse of AI. The use of AI is under current consideration by the university as a whole. You may find it useful to use AI as one of many tools as you go about your assessments. However, individual module lecturers may have their own opinions and rules on the use of AI for their particular module.
AI should never be used to gain an unfair advantage or to create content which is presented as your own work. It is counterproductive to use AI in place of your own learning or thought processes. There is some general university advice (see below) and individual modules will often have advice on their Moodle pages, appropriate for the type of assignment involved.
If in doubt, do acknowledge the use of AI (e.g. I used AI to improve the grammer of my first drafts, to suggest sources of information, and to summarise my ideas). The University's general advice (including a video on AI) is here: https://warwick.ac.uk/students/learning-experience/academic_integrity
See a complementary guide on academic integrity and AI on this page of the Handbook.
What happens if a student is suspected of academic misconduct?
A lecturer, marker or an examiner who suspects misconduct will forward the case to the department's Acadmic Conduct Panel (ACP) to investigate. The membership of the ACP comprises maths lecturers, excluding those who brought the case against the student and those who may have conflicts of interest. They convene regularly to consider cases throughout the academic year.
The ACP use a variety of tools to investigate, including the Turnitin anti-plagiarism software which identifies and tracks sources of material.
If you get involved in such a case you will be guided by the ACP on how to present your side of an incident, and also directed to sources of help (for example the Warwick Students Union).
The ACP then makes a recommendation to the Head of Department for penalties (if any). The HoD then informs the student of the outcome. Penalties that can be recommended by the ACP include:
- Mark deduction or classification downgrade
- Zero in an exam or assignment
- (for more serious cases) Forwarding the case to the University's Academic Integrity Panel, which can impose stronger sanctions, including revoking the right to remedy failure, or recommending that the student be withdrawn from the University.
Sadly, every year a small number of maths students get caught up in misconduct cases. Our advice is to always work with honesty and academic integrity in mind.
Further details can be found on the University's regulations on Academic Integrity.