Plagiarism @ Uni

4p · 17 Sep 2009 at 11:08

Ye mum works in uni and its on the board that reviews this, then she has to go over it and allsorts its all very serious.

It's hard to get away with it most work suspected is scanned using some pretty sicko software.

R.O.S.S.I · 17 Sep 2009 at 11:38

How long generally does it take before you hear something back from them then?

WillyNelson · 17 Sep 2009 at 11:43

Dracata said:
I had this in Year 2 of uni back in 2005... they wouldn't give me any of the details in the end. I accepted it and re-took part of the module.

Did you not ask them to detail which parts they were accusing you of plagarising and where from? Surely such a charge must be supported by some other evidence than "we don't think you wrote part of that".

Hitman_Leon · 17 Sep 2009 at 12:31

CDj-Rossi said:
How long generally does it take before you hear something back from them then?

It might be until the first faculty board meeting if it has to go in front of them, like Ec's ect, understand this though they will sort this out either way for her to resume studies this new semester or be exited from the course.

R.O.S.S.I · 17 Sep 2009 at 12:39

Hitman_Leon said:
It might be until the first faculty board meeting if it has to go in front of them, like Ec's ect, understand this though they will sort this out either way for her to resume studies this new semester or be exited from the course.

Ah right, so basically she'll know whats happening before her course is due to start?

meghatronic · 17 Sep 2009 at 12:56

CDj-Rossi said:
Hey all, just a quick question! A girl I know is ....Any help appreciated.

I'll help with the heartless point, it isn't you. It's a girl. And unless you're smashing her pasty....

Seriously though, Plagiarism is very difficult to avoid, but universities have a duty to prevent it. She'll just have to wait, or ask for more details.

semi-pro waster · 17 Sep 2009 at 13:27

Could it be possible that your friend was copied from? That might well also flag up as a plagiarism offence - it did at my university anyway, one of my mates let another guy have a look at his work and was copied from, this meant the mate who was copied from was also punished with being made to do a resubmission of the work.

Voltar · 17 Sep 2009 at 13:39

CDj-Rossi said:
Funny you should say that, because it was the same question they got issued to re-do, so both of them just got their old essays out and re-added to them with some extra new stuff. So a LARGE amount of it will be exactly the same as what they submitted the first time round.

Duh. That was really stupid of them and pretty slack.
They should have read their faculty handbook and would have seen the clearly stated rules on plagiarism and also on how to write essays.

Most of mine for anything would have clearly on the actual question something along the lines of : "... and not based on any work you have previously done"

Unfortunate perhaps, but it could have all been avoided by your friend so so easily.

Five_Star · 17 Sep 2009 at 13:42

Happened to me at the end of my first year. When I got my results letter for the year it said I was being investigated for plagiarism and I had to attend a formal interview.

It turned out at the interview that some group work I participated in was identical (in nearly every way) to another groups. They asked for my story and I said it was all my own work and signed a document to prove it and that I never shared my work or worked outside the group.

Left the interview and heard nothing until I got my welcome pack for the second year about two weeks later. I then had to ring them for my first year results.

It turned out that one of the guys on my team had just given his mate our finished version. We had finished it with time to spare, this guy was meant to hand it in but first lent it out.

The guy who copied it confessed (he was going to drop out anyway) and the lad from our team that leant ours out also got chucked off the course.

R.O.S.S.I · 17 Sep 2009 at 13:43

We'll just have to wait and see then.

Hitman_Leon · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:33

When I was doing a HNC at college a whole group got caught out for copying each others work, I think it was 12 people handed work on that matched word for word, the head of HE failed them on the assignment but then there were so few people doing the HND computing that they were allowed to re-submit on the same assignment only capped at 40%-pass mark, she let them through as if they had dropped the 12 there would have only been 12 left on the 2nd year HND and it was only october.

DampCat · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:37

Sucks for your friend, hope she get's it sorted.

It seems unfair that innocent people are being penalised when I'm aware of a proffessor on my gf's course having given one of his students a photocopy of a previous year's student's disertation on a similar subject to his own to take home with him and flesh out with.

Not sure how to address it though, i have no better solutions for the system myself. Hope she get's it sorted anyway.

R.O.S.S.I · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:44

We were given previous dissertations to look at when I was at Uni, didn't think it was a biggy?!

Amp34 · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:53

CDj-Rossi said:
Funny you should say that, because it was the same question they got issued to re-do, so both of them just got their old essays out and re-added to them with some extra new stuff. So a LARGE amount of it will be exactly the same as what they submitted the first time round.

I very much doubt re-handing an edited copy of work handed in for a resit of the same assessment would be classed as plagiarism, otherwise you essentially have to write about something new in the resit. However if using some of your own work, already handed in for one module for a different module or different assessment in the same module then yes, but usually they are very clear on that when you are given the assessment (at least at my uni they are).

Hitman_Leon · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:54

DampCat said:
Sucks for your friend, hope she get's it sorted.

It seems unfair that innocent people are being penalised when I'm aware of a proffessor on my gf's course having given one of his students a photocopy of a previous year's student's disertation on a similar subject to his own to take home with him and flesh out with.

CDj-Rossi said:
We were given previous dissertations to look at when I was at Uni, didn't think it was a biggy?!

Looking at previous work makes no difference at all, its not cheating you can pull most previous disertations and projects in the libraries of most if not all uni's. On the other hand actually using any of that work is cheating.

Amp34 · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:55

CDj-Rossi said:
We were given previous dissertations to look at when I was at Uni, didn't think it was a biggy?!

Same here, otherwise you wouldn't know how to set your work out properly etc. It's not about copying anything (especially the work), it's about getting ideas for the layout and what you should put in.

DampCat · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:55

CDj-Rossi said:
We were given previous dissertations to look at when I was at Uni, didn't think it was a biggy?!

Really? Perhaps my story is missing something... everyone was outraged when they found out, i shall have to revisit the facts of the scenario. Perhaps it was someone from the same year or something.

Amp34 · 17 Sep 2009 at 14:58

DampCat said:
Really? Perhaps my story is missing something... everyone was outraged when they found out, i shall have to revisit the facts of the scenario. Perhaps it was someone from the same year or something.

Could just be misinterpretation, the lecturer gave the dissertation for him to look at, not flesh out, then people got the wrong end of the stick.

I know of at least one lecturer that gave his students his own dissertation to look at for ideas and we as a year were shown about a dozen good and bad dissertations from previous years.

There is no way we could have copied any of them however, they were not specific to our field areas.

Pottsey · 17 Sep 2009 at 15:00

Perhaps the outrage was he gave it to only one person. Perhaps people thought it was favouritism.

meghatronic · 17 Sep 2009 at 15:02

Pottsey said:
Perhaps the outrage was he gave it to only one person. Perhaps people thought it was favouritism.

Everyone always cries favouritism. But if they bothered to be noticed, work as hard, suck up as much

maybe they'd be favourites too.