University of Victoria Statement on Plagiarism

The standards and reputation of any university are the shared responsibility of its faculty and students. Therefore, subject to the obvious limits implicit in the difference between undergraduate work and specialized research, students at the University of Victoria are expected to observe the same standards of scholarly integrity as their academic and professional counterparts.

PLAGIARISM AND CHEATING

Misconduct under this heading that is subject to penalty includes, but is not limited to, the following.

1.     Plagiarism.

Scholarship quite properly rests upon examining and referring to the thoughts and writings of others. However, there is a difference between a person’s use of an acknowledged restatement of another’s arguments, and the unacknowledged restatement of another’s arguments in the guise of original work. Plagiarism, therefore, is a form of academic misconduct in which an individual submits or presents the work of another person as his or her own.

Plagiarism exists when an entire work is copied from an author, or composed by another person, and presented as original work.
 

Plagiarism exists when there is no, or there is inadequate, recognition given to an author for phrases, sentences and arguments of the author incorporated in one’s work; and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, it includes the failure to indicate clearly through quotation marks or indentations of longer passages, that materials have been incorporated verbatim into one’s written work. In short, when excerpts from the work of another person are used in one’s work, the author must be acknowledged through footnotes or other accepted practices.

2.     Submitting the same essay, presentation, or assignment more than once (whether the earlier submission was at this or at another institution) unless prior approval has been obtained.

3.     Cheating on an examination or falsifying materials subject to academic evaluation.

In addition to copying the answers or other work of another person, cheating includes, inter alia, having in an examination any materials or equipment other than those authorized by the examiners; fraudulently manipulating laboratory processes in order to achieve desired results; and using commercially prepared essays in place of a student’s own work.

4.     Submitting false records, information or data, in writing or orally.

5.     Attempting to engage in or assisting others to engage in or attempt to engage in the conduct described above.

Penalties and Enforcement

Academic departments and faculties have the authority to enforce proper standards of scholarly integrity by whatever internal procedures seem most appropriate to their respective disciplines. Students in the Department of History found to have cheated or to have committed acts of plagiarism face sanctions ranging from mark reductions to failure on assignment to failure on the course. Under the University Act, only the President has the authority to suspend a student for academic misconduct.

Appeals

Students may appeal decisions to the Department’s Student/Faculty Committee and then to the Dean of the Faculty, and from the Dean of the Faculty to the Senate Committee on Appeals.