Academic Misconduct and Malpractice

Introduction

Academic misconduct covers a number of academic offences that Logistics Learning Alliance and the wider academic community recognises as misconduct or malpractice. These include:

• Plagiarism
• Self-Plagiarism
• Enabling-Plagiarism
• Collusion
• Contract cheating
• Misconduct in an Exam

As part of our standard assessment procedures, Logistics Learning Alliance check student submissions with similarity checking software to help us identify instances of Academic Misconduct.

This software is called Turnitin, and it can produce a report that highlights all the identified copied content within a submission and provide details of where else this content can be found.

This policy sets out the Logistics Learning Alliance rules regarding Academic Misconduct and the associated penalties for committing Academic Misconduct.

1. Plagiarism

1.1. Plagiarism is Defined as using someone else’s work or ideas and presenting it as your own, this includes:

1.1.1. Copying the work of others from your sources or learning materials
1.1.2. Copying other’s work even if you provide the source but do not give a specific quote which has a clear beginning and end.
1.1.3. Summarising or paraphrasing in your own words the ideas or information take from a source without citing a source.

1.2. By submitting an assignment or task that contains work that is not your own, without clearly indicating this (fully acknowledging your sources using full  Harvard Style Referencing), you are committing plagiarism, and this is deemed to be academic misconduct.

1.3. Plagiarism could occur in an assignment or task by:

1.3.1. using a choice phrase or sentence that you have come across or translated from another source.
1.3.2. copying word-for-word directly from a text or other source.
1.3.3. paraphrasing or translating the words from a text or other source very closely, using much of the original wording.
1.3.4. using text downloaded from the internet, including that exchanged on social networks.
1.3.5. borrowing statistics or assembled facts from another person or source.
1.3.6. copying or downloading figures, photographs, pictures, or diagrams without acknowledging your sources.
1.3.7. copying comments or notes from a tutor.
1.3.8. copying from the notes or essays of a fellow student.
1.3.9. copying from your own notes, on a text, tutorial, video, or lecture, that contain direct quotations from tutors.
1.3.10. Using text obtained from assignment writing sites, organisations, or private individuals.
1.3.11. obtaining work from other sources and submitting it as your own.

1.4. You may also be investigated for plagiarism if we cannot verify that work submitted by you is your own.

1.5. By not acknowledging all of your sources fully, you may be misrepresenting your knowledge and abilities. Since this may give you an unfair academic advantage during assessment it is considered academic misconduct.

1.6. You can avoid plagiarising or appearing to plagiarise by:

1.6.1. Always completing assignments and tasks in your own words.
1.6.2. Fully acknowledging your sources by referencing your work fully in Harvard Style.
1.6.3. Limiting the amount of your work that contains referenced sources and quotations.

2. Self-Plagiarism

2.1. Self-Plagiarism is defined as the reuse of significant, identical or near identical, portions of your own work without acknowledging that you have done so. Self-Plagiarism is not encouraged and may in some case been treated as academic misconduct.

2.2. You cannot gain credit for submitting the same work twice, so if work you submit is substantially the same it may not be accepted, and you will be asked to rewrite it.

2.2.1. If you do re-use previously submitted work, in whole or in part, you must cite that work as being previously used for an assignment or task.

3. Enabling Plagiarism

3.1. This is defined as anything that might encourage or enable other students to commit plagiarism. This includes:

3.1.1. Posting your own work or that of other students onto social media or a website.
3.1.2. Offering answers to assessment questions posted by other students on social media, a website or forum.
3.1.3. Making available, selling or advertising for sale your own work or that of other students in any form or by any means.
3.1.4. Posting assignments, tasks, exam questions or assignment guidance materials onto a website or social media.
3.1.5. Posting assignments, tasks, exam questions or assignment guidance materials onto a commercial website that offers writing services.

3.2. Enabling Plagiarism is considered academic misconduct regardless of whether work shared was a draft, incomplete or finished piece of work and whether or not it includes comments or other materials produced by a tutor.

3.3. Enabling plagiarism is considered academic misconduct whether or not you intended to enable or encourage plagiarism.

4. Collusion

4.1. Collusion is defined as working with one or more students to produce a piece of work that you submit as your own, or allowing other students to use any part of your work as if it is their own.

4.2. Collusion can include:

4.2.1. Working together with others on an assignment, even if they are not a student.
4.2.2. Sharing research or materials
4.2.3. Discussing an assignment with other students in too much detail or working together to prepare or share drafts of your work such that the work produced is very similar, for example in sources used, structure or wording.
4.2.4. Allowing other students to read through your draft or finished assignments before they have completed, submitted, and had their own work signed off.
4.2.5. Proof reading someone’s assignment or task and changing the content, meaning or structure of the work or correcting facts or conclusions within the assignment.

4.3. Working tother with other students on a piece of work that will be submitted for individual assessment is not permitted and can lead to all students involved being investigated for academic misconduct.

4.4. Discussing material and ideas you are learning with a tutor and other students is beneficial and is encouraged. However, when you start write your assignment you must make sure that this is entirely your own work, and you should not share it with other students.

5. Contract Cheating

5.1. This is defined as the act of engaging with commercial assignment help services, including websites and social media to either obtain or make available assignments and tasks, assignment and task questions or Logistics Learning Alliance resources. Contract Cheating can involve either committing or enabling plagiarism.

5.2. Commercial assignment help services can include essay mills, services which offer a repository of answers to assessment questions, services which enable you to upload or share assessment questions and services which allow you to obtain tailored or automated answers to assessment questions.

5.3. If you use any of the following you may be considered to be engaged in contract cheating:

5.3.1. Using tailored services to write essays or other types of assignments,
5.3.2. Using commercial services which offer access to a bank of answers to assessment questions and submitting any part of these as your own work
5.3.3. Engaging others to conduct research on your behalf,
5.3.4. Posting assignment questions or assessment resources to commercial websites or other platforms,
5.3.5. Requesting answers or solutions to assessment questions from other individuals or services,
5.3.6. Using services that offer automated answers or solutions to assessment questions and submitting these as your own work,
5.3.7. Using translation tools to generate text and submitting this as your own work.
5.3.8. Engaging another party to write a submission for you, in part or in full, paid or unpaid.
5.3.9. The use of any software, application, tool, website or AI to create, generate, edit or amend any part of an assignment submission, in part or in full, paid or unpaid.

5.4. Some services may use threats to report you to your institution for plagiarism to extort money. If this happens to you, you should always report this to Logistics Learning Alliance so the appropriate action can be taken. Logistics Learning Alliance will take this into account in any subsequent academic conduct investigation.

6. Misconduct in an Exam.

6.1. This is defined as any behaviour in which you seek to gain an advantage over other students by engaging in inappropriate conduct.

6.2. Misconduct in remote, online and/or invigilated exams includes any of offences listed in section 1 to 5 of this policy. You are not normally asked to cite references, but you should take care to write in your own words and not copy from other sources.

6.3. Misconduct in a face to face or invigilated exam includes the possession of prohibited materials or equipment in an exam, engaging someone to impersonate you in an exam or seeking to gain an advantage in other ways. You should make sure you are familiar with the exam rules or restrictions before attending.

6.4. A high standard of conduct is expected in all exams. Any misconduct is seen as a serious matter and can result in disciplinary action.

7. Academic Misconduct Investigations.

7.1. If your coach or tutor identifies or suspects Academic Misconduct, this will be reported to the Logistics Learning Alliance Operations Manager who will support the coach or tutor with an investigation.

7.2. Identified Academic Misconduct will be recorded in your student record.

7.3. If Academic Misconduct is Identified and Confirmed the Operations Manager in conjunction with the coach or tutor will make the decision on the appropriate action and/or penalty.

8. Penalties for Academic Misconduct.

8.1. Penalties for academic misconduct will depend on the severity of the misconduct and whether it is identified as a repeated action.

8.2. Penalties can range from being issued a warning all the way to withdrawal from programme.

8.3. Students found to have committed Academic Misconduct due to plagiarism, self-plagiarism or collusion will be given the opportunity to rewrite their work in conjunction to further support from their coach or tutor. Repeated instances of plagiarism will incur warnings and more than three warnings can lead to withdrawal from the programme.

8.4. Academic misconduct types not covered in 8.3 may result in immediate withdrawal from the programme.

8.5 The LLA Disciplinary Procedure is broken into four simple stages:

Stage 0: Informal Warnings.

Stage 1: Formal Warning. (Employer Notified if Programme paid for by company.)

Stage 2: Final Warning. (Employer Notified if Programme paid for by company.)

Stage 3: Removal from Programme. (Awarding Organisation Notified.)

9. Impact of penalties

9.1. All instances of Academic Misconduct could result in a report to the Awarding Organisation for the programme you are working on.

9.2. If you have been placed on your programme by your employer or your employer has paid for your programme, instances of Academic Misconduct may be reported to your employer.

LLA Logistics Learning Alliance