Assessment Offences
UEL defines an assessment offence as "any action(s) or behaviour likely to confer an unfair advantage in assessment, whether by advantaging the alleged offender or disadvantaging (deliberately or unconsciously) another or others." (Section 1 of Part 8 to the Manual of General Regulations - http://www.uel.ac.uk/qa/manual/documents/PART8-AssessmentOffences-Amended-November2007.doc )
If you are suspected of having committed an assessment offence, you will be sent a letter by your school informing you of this suspicion.
Please note that just because you have been accused of an assessment offence, it does not mean that you have necessarily plagiarised intentionally, it’s more likely that you have done this inadvertently though the course of the composition of your work. However, the offence of plagiarism has still been committed if this is the case.
At a later date, you will receive a further letter asking you to attend a meeting with your school; at this meeting you will either be shown your work in comparison to that which the school believes is copied into your own work without correctly referencing.
At this meeting you will be given the opportunity to either accept the penalty, which at this point will most likely be a Level A penalty:
|
Level of penalty |
Indicative offence |
|
Level A (Minor offences) |
|
|
Record a mark of 0 for the component of assessment.
Fail the module. Retrieve the component of assessment (along with any other retrieval required through failure of the module).
Cap the assessment/reassessment of the component at 40% before calculating the final module mark used in determining a pass/fail decision on the module. Cap the module mark at 40%. |
|
|
Level B (Serious and/or subsequent offences) |
|
|
If the offence occurs at assessment or reassessment of the module then record a mark of 0 for all components of assessment in the module.
Fail the module. Retrieve all components of assessment at the next assessment with attendance.
Cap the repeat assessment of the module at 40%. Discretion to suspend for up to two semesters.
If the offence occurs at REPEAT assessment or REPEAT reassessment of the module then record a mark of 0 for all components of assessment in the module.
Fail the module.
Do not allow further registration, assessment or reassessment on the module.
Discretion to suspend for up to two semesters. |
|
|
Level C (Major and/or subsequent offences) |
|
|
Expulsion
|
|
(Section 8 to Part 8 of the Manual of General Regulations - http://www.uel.ac.uk/qa/manual/documents/PART8-AssessmentOffences-Amended-November2007.doc ).
If the school are satisfied that you did not commit an offence then the matter will end there, however if not, you will have the choice of accepting the offence and penalty, or appeal the decision and go to a panel hearing.
At a panel hearing the school will put the case against you, they are entitled to ask for a harsher penalty (generally a minimum of level B) at this stage; this is to reflect the fact that it requires a lot of effort to convene a panel and to discourage abuse of the system.
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