Student Academic Misconduct Procedures - Changes for 2021-22

Student Academic Misconduct Procedure changes

Key changes include:

• Under 9.2 a new category of definitions entitled ‘Online Assessment Misconduct’ has been added with adjudication falling within the Academic Misconduct Panel. These additions are designed so students are more aware what constitutes Academic Misconduct within these types of assessment, these include:
  • Any use of unauthorised material
  • Any unauthorised communication or attempted communication with other students or third parties in relation to the assessment.
  • Discussion or sharing of assessment content with other students or third parties.
  • Unauthorised collaboration with other students or third parties.
  • Copying or attempting to copy from another student’s work.
  • Any attempt to confer with or gain access to the script of any other candidate during the period of the assessment.
• Under 9.2 a) ‘Examination Room Misconduct’ viii, ix, and xi have been removed as these are covered in the broader range of definitions as c) Plagiarism, l) Impersonation, and m) 'Any other conduct...'.
• Under 9.2 the definition for ‘g) Falsification’ has been expanded to include Falsification of Word Counts.
• Under 9.2 the definition for ‘h) Contract Cheating’ has been expanded to also include ‘knowingly using a commissioned piece of work’, and the “intent to submit” part of the previous definition has been removed as commissioning is considered the main offence.
• Under 9.2 ‘k) Any attempt to tamper with coursework after submission’ has been re-added, as this was included on the Penalty Table but had been incorrectly removed in a previous version.

The full procedures can be found in Chapter 6, Section 9 of the Academic Manual.

Expedited Academic Misconduct Process 2021-22

Educacation Committee has agreed to extend the Expedited Academic Misconduct Process for the 2021-22 academic year. The process is the same as it was during 2020-21, and was originally designed to help manage the workload across UCL in relation to Academic Misconduct casework.

The full process ca be found in Covid-19 Academic Misconduct Changes.

New Forms

As highlighted in last month's newsletter, ARQASC recently approved two new forms for inclusion in Chapter 6 of the Academic Manual in relation to Student Academic Misconduct. These forms are as follows:

Annex 6.9.2 Investigatory Viva Report Form

A new form designed as a supplement to the Academic Misconduct Report Form to help guide staff in submitting an Investigatory Viva Report to the Academic Misconduct Panel for consideration.

Annex 6.9.4 Academic Misconduct Appeals Form

A new form designed to assist students in submitting all of the required information for an Academic Misconduct appeal to the Casework Team.

Re-numbering of existing Forms

To accomodate the new forms there has also been some minor re-adjustment of the existing form numbering so they are in a logical order. It should be noted that no changes have been made to these forms:

Managing the impact of the industrial action on assessment: now Annex 6.6.2, but was Annex 6.3.

Academic Misconduct Report Form: now Annex 6.9.1, but was Annex 6.1.

Guidance on group panels in cases of student collusion: now Annex 6.9.3, but was Annex 6.3

Contact email for further information: academicregulations@ucl.ac.uk