Academic Integrity and Academic Misconduct

Academic Integrity is one of the most important principles in Higher Education and research. By working with Academic Integrity all members of the university contribute to a culture that is honest, transparent and respectful, maintaining the integrity of a student’s work and their award. Academic integrity is based on the ethos that how you learn is as important as what you learn. 

For you as a student, Academic Integrity means that your work must be a result of your own research and ideas. Information taken from other sources must be fully acknowledged, whether it is directly quoted, paraphrased or summarised.

Academic integrity is important as it enables all students to be judged fairly and on the merits of their own work and research. This in turn allows you to have pride and confidence in your achievements, and to prosper beyond university without resorting to unethical practices.

You can find out more about the Dos and Don’ts of Academic Integrity in the Academic Success: Skills for Learning, Skills for Life course. This self-directed, e-learning course is made up of three modules, the third module of which focuses on Academic Integrity.

You can access the content relating to Academic Integrity by following the link above, enrolling yourself on the canvas course, and then selecting 'Section 3: Academic Integrity' on the course's home page.

Plagiarism is defined as using, without acknowledgement, another person’s work and submitting for assessment as though it were one’s own work. 

An example of plagiarism is copying a piece of text word-for-word from another source without acknowledging the original author(s). Plagiarism can also occur when you use someone else’s idea, phrase it in your own words, but fail to acknowledge the original source. Other examples include using but not acknowledging figures, software, diagrams, materials from the internet, or another student’s work.  

It should be noted that whether this happens intentionally or unintentionally, it will still be seen and treated as plagiarism. This is why it is important to learn when and how to acknowledge sources, use direct quotations and paraphrase sources accurately and correctly.

The Centre for Academic Success have helpful videos about Using Direct Quotes in Your Writing, and Paraphrasing. You can also find guidance on referencing from the Library.

Commissioning work is when a student arranges for another person to produce a piece of work for them. Regardless of whether or not this work is then submitted as though it were their own work, and regardless of whether or not the student pays for the work with money or with goods or services, any arrangement for another person to produce work for you is deemed a commission.

In recent years the market for ‘essay mills’ has grown at a rapid rate. These work by charging students to write essays. It goes without saying that this counts as academic misconduct: the work is not the student’s own and therefore the student has not gone through the required process of research and expression of ideas that facilitates learning.

Implications for this kind of ‘contract’ cheating are severe, and the standard penalty for commissioning work is cancellation of all module marks across the level of study and withdrawal from the university.

While a student considering commissioning work, including contract cheating, might assume there is little chance of them being caught, in fact the reverse is true. Studies have shown over 60% of ‘commissioned essays’ are correctly identified by lecturers, as the person writing the essay will not have had access to the same lectures and materials as the student. What’s more, the essay mill writers will often reuse work from previous essays on similar subjects, meaning there is a high chance of the assignment being picked up by Turnitin.  

Contract Cheating companies are often unscrupulous too; there have been cases where students have received threatening emails from contract cheating companies, demanding extra payments for them not to tell a university that the essay was bought.

For more about the dangers of using essay mills, watch the interview with Professor Michael Draper further down the page, or have a look at the following article:

Time Higher Education: Six Reasons not to Use Essay Mills 

In most subjects, you will be expected to paraphrase sources more often than you quote them. This is because lecturers need to see that a student understands the material, and can explain it in their own words. If you use software to do this, you skip the valuable process of explaining that helps embed understanding.

Paraphrasing software may be useful in certain contexts (such as a starting point for understanding complex articles) but it should be used with care. If a student submits a software-generated paraphrase as part of their work, they are claiming that they were the author of that paraphrase. This is considered Academic Misconduct. Remember, all work that you submit, including paraphrasing, needs to be in your own words.

Using paraphrasing software may also have implications for the quality of your work, as while it may be able to suggest a paraphrase for a sentence, it will not necessarily understand the full context of the information.

Finally, as with contract cheating, work that uses this type of software will have a far higher chance of being picked up on Turnitin, as it will often interpret source material in the same way.

If you'd like to learn more about Paraphraising, watch this useful video about paraphrasing from The Centre for Academic Success.

Participating in study groups and working with peers can be productive and is encouraged. However, when it comes to individual assessments, it is important to ensure that all the work is done by the individual. Collusion occurs when students work together, without authorisation, to produce a piece of work for assessment, but then present the materials as their own without acknowledging the contributions of the originator(s).

When taking an exam, online or in-person, there will be a set of regulations which you must follow. In order to maintain Academic Integrity, it is important to pay close attention to these regulations and make sure that you follow them. 

Examples of practices which should be avoided include bringing in any unauthorised materials and devices into the examination room, communicating with others without permission from an invigilator, impersonating an examination candidate or allowing yourself to be impersonated, and presenting false evidence of special circumstances to examination boards. 

It is best to leave your phone out of the room, avoid any unpermitted communication with others, and be honest about who you are and any circumstances which might affect your exam performance.

Please refer to Swansea University’s Examination Regulations here for further information: 

Regulations and Procedures for the Operation of Examination

There are many exciting potential applications for Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, but in the academic context they should be used with caution. AI tools are no substitute for learning or critical thinking; using them can cause you to miss out on the experience of fact checking and evaluating evidence, along with the opportunity to practice writing and communication skills. Work generated by AI tools and submitted for assessment when not expressly authorised and declared could be investigated for Academic Misconduct.

Your module tutors and University staff will guide you in the use of technologies including the benefits, risks and ethical considerations of use. Always seek knowledge and clarification (ASK) from your module tutors if you don’t understand assessment requirements and guidance.

For information on the University's approach to the use of AI in your work, please refer to the Artificial Intelligence Guidance pages. You can also sign up for the Centre for Academic Success' Artificial Intelligence and Academic Skills course for a deeper understanding of the appropriate use of AI in Higher Education.