{"id":427,"date":"2020-06-02T14:26:23","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T13:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/academic-skills\/?p=427"},"modified":"2024-04-18T10:20:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T09:20:39","slug":"academic-integrity-how-to-be-an-ethical-scholar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/academic-and-employability-skills\/2020\/06\/02\/academic-integrity-how-to-be-an-ethical-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic integrity: how to be an ethical scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Briony Frost, Curriculum Development Officer in the Centre for Learning & Teaching, manages the University's Academic Integrity Project. Briony explains the importance of academic honesty and the resources available to help all students become ethical scholars.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the University of Bath, we pride ourselves on our vibrant and innovative academic community which encourages students to work independently and to have original ideas. You're expected to study existing research in your field and incorporate the ideas of other authors into your own work.<\/p>\n

Academic integrity means being honest about where you've sourced the materials for your assignments, indicating which ideas are yours and which are from other authors. The University expects all its students to commit to, and maintain, high standards of academic honesty and integrity in all of their work, respecting the labour and originality of others.<\/p>\n

What is plagiarism?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the majority of academic writing, for example a dissertation or essay, it's essential to give a full reference for each source you use, whether published or unpublished. (Rules may differ for some types of assessment where partial referencing may be acceptable, such as exams. If in doubt, check with your tutor).<\/p>\n

If you don't reference properly, you're essentially passing someone else's work off as your own. This is called 'plagiarism' and is a serious academic offence. Plagiarised work is usually disqualified, which can have a major impact on your grades. More information about the consequences of plagiarism is available in this Quality Assurance Code of Practice statement: QA53 Examination and Assessment Offences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Plagiarism is not always deliberate and students are often surprised that they have misunderstood and unintentionally broken the rules. You may not realise that even reusing your own work without acknowledgement is also classed as plagiarism! Claims of ignorance or oversight (so-called 'inadvertence') won't be accepted, however, so it's really important to understand the rules on plagiarism, how to recognise it and how to refer to other people's work or ideas correctly.<\/p>\n

Submitting work that has been written by someone other than yourself is also an assessment offence. This means that in addition to referencing your work properly, you must not purchase or commission another person to write your work for you. Whether you persuade a friend or relative, or buy an assignment online from an essay mill, this will be classed as cheating and you\u2019ll be subject to the same penalties.<\/p>\n

Whenever you submit a piece of assessed coursework, in either hard or electronic copy, you'll have to make a declaration that the work is your own and, where you have re-used your own work and\/or used other sources of information, that you have referenced the material appropriately.<\/p>\n

More information about plagiarism is available in the Library's referencing guide<\/a>. You can find out more about the University's Plagiarism Detection Service on the\u00a0Academic Integrity Training and Test information page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Referencing is the process of acknowledging other people\u2019s work when you have used it in your assignment or research. It allows the reader to locate your source material as quickly and easily as possible so that they can read these sources themselves and verify the validity of your arguments. Referencing provides the link between what you write and the evidence on which it is based.\" (Cite them Right website)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ethical Scholar Toolkit<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In September 2019, the University launched a new online academic integrity training package called the Ethical Scholar Toolkit<\/a>. This provides full guidance for students at all stages of their academic career on how to avoid assessment offences, including plagiarism, and develop the necessary skills to reference appropriately when preparing assignments.<\/p>\n

The Ethical Scholar Toolkit is made up of two main resources and can be accessed on MySkills:<\/p>\n

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Skills for Study e-learning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n