Academic fraud
Academic fraud means:
- use of forbidden materials during evaluation of learning outcomes;
- forbidden exchange of information during evaluation of learning outcomes;
- impersonating someone else during evaluation of learning outcomes;
- submission of somebody else’s work under your own name or using parts of their work without proper referencing (plagiarism); or
- resubmission of one’s own work again if they have already received credit points for it.
What is plagiarism?
The most frequent cases of plagiarism involve the use of unreferenced sources. A student may reproduce another author’s text under their own name either word for word or slightly changed.
You must provide a reference to all publications, fundamental views, ideas, citations, formulae, numeric data and images by other authors that you use. Generally accepted positions need no referencing.
Upon referencing, the purpose it serves in the work must be borne in mind, for example, whether you want to convey an idea or present a counterargument to someone else’s position. Here you have two options: citation (quotation marks or italics should be used) and referencing (rephrasing the ideas of the original with your own words, no quotation marks). You should avoid unintentional plagiarism, e.g. rephrasing somebody else’s work without referencing or using too many citations in your work.
There are several referencing styles, and you should use the one that is the norm in your field of study. Before drawing up academic texts, the respective requirements effective in your field or institute must certainly be examined.
If a student has committed academic fraud, the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs must reprimand them or propose deletion of the student from the matriculation register.
Aside from academic fraud, a student may also be deleted from the matriculation register due to other kind of dishonourable behaviour (e.g. forgery of documents, violation of generally accepted rules of behaviour, intentional offences).
The academic community of UT can now use URKUND – a plagiarism control system that detects plagiarism in Estonian and in English. Urkund functions as a plagiarism prevention system, which allows instructors to have their students submit their text via Moodle . Urkund will generate an analysis report that focuses on finding and recognising similarities between the submitted text and the databases connected to Urkund. The instructor is able to see whether a student correctly (or incorrectly) makes reference to passages showing similarities. Instructors and students, therefore, need to check the marked passages more thoroughly enhancing a writer’s understanding what constitutes plagiarism and how to prevent it.
For students: The UT students can have their written assignments checked in Urkund via Moodle. There is a course titled URKUND plagiarism (ENGLISH).
Students can register themselves to the course and follow the instructions in the Moodle environment to submit their text for analysis. You can also submit your thesis for analysis, but please inform your supervisor about this. Some academic units might already have one person in charge checking the theses in the system. If not, your supervisor can advise you to check your thesis yourself. Make sure you have enough time to make changes to your text based on the results you receive.
For using Urkund purposefully, support and instruction is offered by UT’s Centre for Academic Writing and Communication (AVOK). Some guidelines for using Urkund are also available on http://www.maailmakeeled.ut.ee/en/about-us/avoiding-plagiarism.
The UT’s academic community can and is still encouraged to use KRATT, yet Urkund is an additional option to help the students to advance their academic writing skills and compare works to international databases and the internet.
Additional information:
Centre for Academic Writing and Communication
www.maailmakeeled.ut.ee/en/avok
avokeskus [ät] ut.ee
Lossi 3-310
Tel: 737 6368