Plagiarism and Collaboration FAQs

The main reason you are here is to extend your knowledge and learning. You are not expected to do this in isolation and inevitably your learning is based upon knowledge, either gained directly from other people or from recorded sources. We want you to use all available resources to gain knowledge, and this includes not only reading published literature and material communicated by the academic staff but also sharing knowledge with other students.

However, the university awards qualifications mainly based upon individual endeavour and not collaborative activity. These qualifications are awarded on the basis of the work submitted by you as coursework or in examinations. This work should represent your own knowledge and understanding, and not that of someone else.

There is a potential conflict here, in that we want to encourage free interchange of information, while we also want to assess individual achievement. This FAQ is intended to help you understand the difference between what we consider to be valuable and healthy mutual assistance, and plagiarism. It attempts to supplement (but not replace) the University regulations by answering a number of questions that you might pose the topics of collaboration and plagiarism.

The following definition is taken from UELT's advice on good academic practice for staff and students:

All students and staff are expected to act with academic integrity.

Senate has approved the following definition of plagiarism:

While this definition is expressed in terms of material such as essays and dissertations, the same principles apply to other material, such as computer programs.

The following are taken from the General Regulations for Students on plagiarism and duplication of material:

Coursework often requires some background research and evaluation of material. It is often helpful to discuss with others the value of particular sources and sharing and discussion of information sources is acceptable and often useful.

In producing a piece of work you should work individually and should determine for yourself whether to include or preclude a particular source of information. There is no problem in discussing grammatical or syntactic problems in your work or points that you discover you have not completely understood.

It is important that the work that you hand in is not the work of somebody else. However, it is often useful to discuss problems with other students at various stages of a programming project. The following guidelines may be helpful:

Preliminary analysis of the problem

It is reasonable to discuss a problem with other students in order to help you understand the requirements. If several of you feel that there are ambiguities in a problem specification then do seek advice from the person who set the assignment.

Developing the Algorithm

Prior to coding it is often helpful to discuss possible ways of tackling it with others.

Coding the algorithm

You should work independently at this stage and should not share code with other students.

Developing a test strategy

It is reasonable to discuss strategies for testing a program however you should independently plan and implement those tests.

Compiler errors

If you are stuck on a program error then there is no harm in asking another student to help in identifying the cause of the error. However, you should devise and implement the solution independently.

Execution Errors

Discussing execution errors with other can help to identify possible flaws in programming logic and/or your basic strategy. If you obtain help in identifying a problem then you should independently seek a solution. You should not copy code from another student in order to solve the problem.

Documentation

It is reasonable to discuss what is required for the documentation of a programming assignment but you should document your solution independently.

Material from the Internet

Always include a reference to any material downloaded or otherwise copied from the Internet. For Web based material, including forum posts and videos, you should include the URL as well as details of the author, the page title (if available) and the date the page was accessed. Never delete an author's own attribution from source code, for instance.

Direct quotations

Always credit the source when you directly quote another person. If you are paraphrasing but using a quote in the middle of a sentence, be sure to use quotation marks.

Paraphrasing

Summarising a passage or rearranging the order of a sentence and changing some of the words is paraphrasing. Each time a source is paraphrased, a credit for the source should be included in the text.

Statistics, charts, tables, and graphs from any source

Include a citation for all information either copied directly or reproduced in your work.

Information or help provided by friends, instructors, or others Academic staff and friends can be valuable sources. If they assist in the production of you work then their contribution should be credited.

For sites like RentACoder, effectively a pay-for-code service, definitely not. We actively take steps to identify students who use such sites. In addition, publishing an assessment description (or parts of it) on a site is a breach of copyright with respect to the assessment materials.

Forum sites such as StackOverflow can be an invaluable resource when learning to program, and we would not discourage students from using these where and as appropriate. However, asking specific assessment related questions and using (in whole or part) the answers given in your submission is not allowed. We actively take steps to identify students posting assessment specific questions on such sites.

Similarly, using existing code (in whole or part) from sites such as StackOverflow, or from videos found on YouTibe and elsewhere, is not allowed without proper attribution. We would generally discourage this, and you would only ever receive marks for work which is your own.

If in any doubt about whether, and how, particular material could or should be used, contact the assessment setter or senior tutor.

No. Imagine reading a novel and understanding it. That would not mean that it was ok to try to publish the same novel under your name. It is fine to read around a subject and look at related examples, but the work you submit must be your own and not simply a rehash of someone else's.

You should ask yourself if the type of help you are being asked to give is more than would normally be provided by a member of academic staff. If you help somebody else to break the regulations then you are in danger of getting into trouble.

Never give somebody your finished piece of work. It is amazing how many times a student says that he/she was unaware that a "friend" used substantial parts of their work.

Be aware that if you either willingly or through negligence, allow somebody to copy your work, then you are both in breach of the regulations and consequently you may both be penalised.

1. Keep copies of any handwritten drafts and any materials that you used in preparing the work.
2. Make sure that you collect any printouts from public printers
3. Do not leave USB drives or other removable storage media lying around in public places
4. Always log out after working at a public workstation.

Report your suspicions immediately to your class supervisor or the relevant course convenor to protect yourself against a later charge of plagiarism.