ACADEMIC MALPRACTICE POLICY
1. AIM
• Identify and minimise the risk of malpractice by staff and learners;
• Respond to any incident of alleged malpractice promptly and objectively;
• Standardise and record any investigation of malpractice to ensure openness and fairness;
• Impose appropriate penalties and/or sanctions on learners or staff where incidents (or attempted incidents) of malpractice are proven.
2. TO IMPLEMENT, UNIATHENA WILL
• Seek to avoid potential malpractice by informing learners of the College’s policy for malpractice and the penalties for attempted and actual incidents of malpractice;
• Show learners the appropriate formats to record cited texts, other materials and information sources;
• Ask learners to declare that their work is their own, and to provide evidence that they have interpreted and synthesized appropriate information and acknowledged any sources used;
• Conduct an investigation in a form commensurate with the nature of the malpractice allegation.
3. THE PROCESS
The College will acquire the original source material where possible and indicate what sections of the material have been taken by the student, cross referring to the material’s location in the student’s work.
The academic will be asked to produce a brief statement, explaining why they consider there to be malpractice in the student’s work. They will continue to mark the work where possible as if the work does not contain academic malpractice. The mark should be withheld from the student pending any disciplinary action.
4. IF THE COLLEGE DEEMS ACTION TO BE REQUIRED, IT WILL
• Make the learner/staff member fully aware at the earliest opportunity of the nature of the alleged malpractice and the possible consequences if malpractice be proven;
• Give the individual the opportunity to respond to the allegations made;
• Inform the individual of the right of appeal against any judgment made;
• Document all stages of any investigation.
Where malpractice is proven, the College will apply an appropriate penalty or sanctions. The nature and scope of the sanction will be determined, at least in part, by:
• Whether first or subsequent offence;
• Point within the learner journey;
• Whether other learners are involved.
5. WHAT CONSTITUTES ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT
5.1 Definition. Academic misconduct in respect of assessment, constitutes cheating or plagiarism. Academic misconduct is defined as any improper activity or behaviour by a student which may give that student, or another student, an unpermitted academic advantage in a summative assessment.
5.2 Guidelines. Boards of Examiners/ Assessment Boards will be responsible for decisions in relation to suspected cases of misconduct. UniAthena will lay down detailed procedures for investigating and documenting alleged misconduct in assessment within the following broad guidelines:
(a) Where a case of misconduct is suspected, the board of examiners/ assessment board should not come to a decision on the candidate’s result until the facts have been established. UniAthena will establish a process that will allow all evidence to be collated and documented before a case is reported to the board of examiners/ assessment board.
(b) Where a case of misconduct has been established, the examiners should judge the significance of the academic misdemeanour and exercise its discretion as appropriate to the case. If it is established that a student has attempted to gain an unfair advantage, the examiners will be having the authority to rule that the student has failed part or all of the assessments, and will be the final authority to determine whether or not the student should be permitted to be reassessed.
(c) All such cases will be treated seriously and where evidence is there of misconduct and another chance has been given to the student after investigation, the marks or grade will be capped to a minimum pass or equivalent marks for that programme.
(d) Penalties for proven academic misconduct will be spelt out for all such cases.
(e) Procedures dealing with misconduct will be applied consistently across the validated provision.
6. MALPRACTICE BY LEARNERS
The nature of learner malpractice may include the following:
• Plagiarism of any nature;
• Collusion by working collaboratively with other learners to produce work that is submitted as individual learner work;
• Copying (including the use of ICT to aid copying);
• Deliberate destruction of another learner’s work;
• Fabrication of results or evidence;
• False declaration of authenticity in relation to the contents of a portfolio or coursework;
• Impersonation by pretending to be someone else in order to produce their work.
7. MALPRACTICE BY STAFF
This list is not exhaustive, but the nature of staff malpractice may include the following:
• Improper assistance to candidates;
• Inventing or changing marks for internally assessed work (coursework or portfolio evidence)
where there is insufficient evidence of the candidates’ achievement to justify the marks given or the assessment decisions made;
• Failure to keep secure candidate coursework/portfolios of evidence;
• Fraudulent claims for certificates;
• Inappropriate retention of certificates;
• Assisting learners in the production of work for assessment, where the support has the potential to influence the outcomes of assessment;
• Producing falsified witness statements, for example for evidence the learner has not generated;
• Allowing evidence, which is known by the staff member not to be the learner’s own, to be included in a learner’s assignment/task/portfolio/coursework etc.;
• Facilitating and allowing impersonation;
• Misusing the conditions for special learner requirements, for example where learners are permitted support, such as an amanuensis. This is permissible up to the point where the support has the potential to influence the outcome of the assessment;
• Falsifying records/certificates, for example by alteration, substitution, or by fraud;
• Fraudulent certificate claims, that is claiming for a certificate prior to the learner completing all the requirements of assessment.
Where malpractice is proven, the College will apply an appropriate penalty or sanctions.
8. MALPRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR CENTRE STAFF ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
• Social media in the form of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are some of the commonly used social media platforms used by most of the people, which includes UniAthena Staff members, including the students.
• All UniAthena Staff will refrain from using Social Media for personal gains, including posting views on such platforms which are discriminatory in nature, or radical opinions pertaining to religious or political views.
• The country’s Labour Laws, as well as Universal Legal Statutory Laws prohibit any person from discriminating against gender, religion, disability, caste/ creed, sexual orientation of a person. These discriminatory nature postings will NOT be made on any social media platform.
• No inflammatory material or postings will be done on social media platforms, which can incite passions, hatred and tensions amongst different communities, and are non-secular in nature.
• No posts will be put on such platforms again which have vested personal interests of individuals, or are going against the Institute’s interests and ethics.
• UniAthena Staff will refrain from interacting with students on a social media platform which infringes on the privacy, safety or security of students.
• All staff will refrain from using social media platforms during working hours, unless it is part of the work requirement.
• Disciplinary action will be initiated against any defaulter for infringement of the guidelines laid herein.
9. RELEVANT ASPECTS OF THE (REVISED) UK QUALITY CODE
9.1 Expectations for Quality: Core Practices
The provider has sufficient and appropriate facilities, learning resources and student support services to deliver a high-quality academic experience.
The provider actively engages students, individually and collectively, in the quality of their educational experience.
The provider supports all students to achieve successful academic and professional outcomes.
9.2 Common Practices
The provider reviews its core practices for quality regularly and uses the outcomes to drive improvement and enhancement.
The provider engages students individually and collectively in the development, assurance and enhancement of the quality of their educational experience.
