2nd Asia-Pacific Educational Integrity Conference
Abstract
The seriousness of plagiarism incidents: Making consistent decisions across a university
Shelley Yeo and Robyn Chien - Curtin University of Technology
A new plagiarism policy is being developed for Curtin University of Technology. A review of past practices across the university revealed difficulties among staff in deciding the seriousness of a case of alleged plagiarism and subsequently, in applying consistent penalties. These difficulties have arisen, in part, because of previous flexible policy provisions in relation to classifying an incident of plagiarism. The new policy provides a classification framework and proforma with four criteria, each on a continuum from least serious through to most serious, and then an overall classification into three levels. Each level then determines the management process to be followed. The purpose is to allow staff some flexibility to interpret different plagiarism cases but to make more consistent overall decisions. The proforma has been trialled to determine the degree of consistency in the decisions that staff make when using it. In this session, we present some data from the trial and recommendations for future use of the proforma.Keywords: plagiarism; academic integrity, educational integrity
