About academic integrity
A brief iLecture introducing academic integrity and student guidelines for avoiding plagiarism. This is an important resource for all Curtin students. |
Definition of plagiarism
Plagiarism means presenting the work or property of another person as one's own without appropriate acknowledgment or referencing.
It includes:
- copying of sentences, paragraphs or creative products which are the work of other persons (including books, articles, theses, unpublished works, working papers, seminar and conference papers, internal reports, lecture notes or tapes) without due acknowledgment;
- too closely paraphrasing sentences, paragraphs or themes without due acknowledgment;
- using another person's work/s (including words, music, computer source code, creative or visual artefacts, designs or ideas) or research data without due acknowledgment;
- submitting work which has been produced by someone else (e.g. allowing or contracting another person to do the work for which you claim authorship);
- copying or submitting computer files, code or website content in whole or in part without indicating the origin of these;
- submitting one's own previously assessed or published work for assessment or publication elsewhere, without appropriate acknowledgement (self-plagiarism);
- in the case of collaborative projects, falsely representing the individual contributions of the collaborating partners.
The University Statement on Plagiarism
The 
University Plagiarism Policy
When you enrol at university, you are entering a community which is different in many respects from the everyday community. In the everyday community, politicians rarely write the speeches that they deliver, and most people consider this to be acceptable. If, in the course of your studies, you get someone else to write the text for an assessed oral presentation, and you simply memorise and present it as if you had written it, you are plagiarising. This would incur a penalty. Similarly, journalists often 'recycle' their stories and few in the wider community appear concerned, but if a student does the same with their assessment work, they will probably be accused of plagiarism. At university, both academic staff and students are bound by the values and expected behaviours of an academic community. Behaviour that is acceptable elsewhere cannot be used to defend its use in the academic community.
A Curtin degree has prestige in the wider community because of the values the Curtin academic community upholds. In order for this degree to continue to retain its worth, you will need to help maintain these values. You are asked to accept these values when admitted to your course of study.
There are a number of ways in which you can breach academic integrity - including cheating, by interfering with the learning of others and by plagiarising. The Student guidelines for avoiding plagiarism booklet is about plagiarism - what it is, how to learn to build on the knowledge of others without plagiarising their work and what you can expect to happen if you do plagiarise. Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. Deliberately using plagiarism to cheat is a form of academic misconduct.
Detecting plagiarism: As part of Curtin's approach to maintaining academic integrity, the University has elected to subscribe to Turnitin, an electronic plagiarism detection service. Students should be aware that their assignments may be submitted to this service to check for unacknowledged use of others' work.
The University regards any acts of cheating or dishonesty by way of plagiarism very seriously. There are strong penalties for breaches, including annulment of results or termination/expulsion from the University.
