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Plagiarism Policy - students enrolled in coursework units

The Plagiarism Policy and Procedures apply to assessments conducted for coursework units and degrees. The purpose of the policy and procedures is to manage plagiarism appropriately in order to protect the University's reputation and academic standards for current and future students. The policy and procedures provide guidance to faculties to assist them in minimising plagiarism and in managing incidents of plagiarism in a consistent and equitable manner. Key features of this policy are outlined below.

Definition of plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when students fail to acknowledge that the ideas of others are being used. Specifically it occurs when:

• other people's work and/or ideas are paraphrased and presented without a reference
• other students' work is copied or partly copied
• other people's designs, codes or images are presented as the student's own work
• phrases and passages are used verbatim without quotation marks and/or without a reference to the author or a web page
• lecture notes are reproduced without due acknowledgement.

Unintentional and intentional plagiarism

The chief examiner (or nominee) is required to decide whether or not they believe that plagiarism was likely to have been intentional or unintentional. There are a number of factors that might be taken into consideration when deciding this, for example:

• the student is in the first year of the course and has not received a prior warning
• the student is from an educational background where different norms apply for the acknowledgement of sources
• a negligible amount has been plagiarised
• the student has made an inadequate attempt at referencing
• the students in the cohort were given information on how to acknowledge extracts and quotations. The student was present/received written information and knew that the use of material without acknowledgement was unacceptable
• the student had received a prior warning about plagiarism.

Unintentional plagiarism

Should the chief examiner (or nominee) have reasonable grounds to find that plagiarism was not intentional a decision will be made within 10 working days as to the course of action to be taken. Possible actions are:

• warn the student and mark the paper without penalty (deduction of marks)
• warn the student and mark the paper with penalty
• warn the student, request resubmission, and mark the paper with penalty.

Intentional plagiarism

Before the chief examiner (or nominee) determines that cheating through intentional plagiarism has occurred, they must consider the student' response (if any) to the allegation. If the student fails to respond to an accusation of intentional plagiarism and cannot convince the chief examiner that the plagiarism was unintentional, the chief examiner will disallow the work or report the matter to the faculty manager of the managing faculty. If reported, the faculty manager is required to establish a faculty discipline committee and the matter will be dealt with under the Discipline Statute.

Plagiarism register

A register will be maintained to record warnings that have been given to students about plagiarism (even where no formal action has been taken or penalty applied), and penalties applied and the nature of those penalties. Records regarding a student's involvement in alleged plagiarism will be retained while the student is still enrolled or intermitted in any course.

Further information

• Plagiarism Policy at http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/plagiarism-policy.html
• Plagiarism Procedures (Australian campuses) at http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/plagiarism-procedures.html