I'm wondering how other schools handle cases of plagiarism.

Currently I have on my hand two very serious plagiarism cases where the students took drawings from previous graduated students and try to pass it off as their own. In our case, we're trying to push these two final year students to be kicked out of the school because it's so serious.

We're not talking about copying/cheating in exams, but taking other's works as their final year project (FYP), thesis or graduating dissertation.

normally my sch has some sort of tribunal...whereby the students caught copying would have to attend etc ..and they can even be represented by their respective lawyers... plagiarism is treated very very seriously in my sch at least.. but still, the punishment meted out is stil very dependent on the severity.. ie if one copy pasted a short section from a cliff notes/sparknotes without citing it, the student would be issued a warning or the most, receive a failing grade for that subject.

The question is, can the school kick out the student for plagiarism? Is this spelled out properly as one of the punishment?

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 21 2013, 11:38 AM

yes. it's in the university regulation. i'm pretty sure it's used everywhere else as well, but just a matter of carrying it out.

My alma mater had students take an online test at the start of every academic year to make sure we were all aware of the university's plagiarism policy.

For cases of unintentional plagiarism, any offending work will be awarded the minimum pass mark.

Intentional plagiarism will result in a score of 0.

I knew someone in final year who did just what TS is asking. Basically took results from a submitted piece of work and tried to pass it off as his own for the final year project (which is the only thing we do for a full semester).

Failed the whole course. Only awarded an "Ordinary Degree" which in the UK is a class lower than a Diploma. Some might argue its even more worthless than A-levels, because employers will know you did something bad in uni

EDIT: Have to add, at my uni we're not allowed to repeat final year. So once you're out ... you're out.

This post has been edited by corad: Jan 21 2013, 11:53 AM

do you acknowledge the source?

in an assessment, you need to present the original work and your own work, for the jury to decide how much you've put your work (modifying/changing) in it.

unfortunately Turnitin doesnt work on drawing

From what I understand, the student gets an F. Then there will be a disciplinary hearing (something like that?) to decide on the punishment.

The issue should be viewed from many different perspective.

From the side of the teacher, of course they want their student to be creative and come up with something very new and do not copy any other's work even their seniors.
But in this case, many students might face in dilemma on not knowing how to complete their assignments with their limited experience and knowledge.
By doing the work with creativity, it might not reach what the lecture want and in the end, given a very low score for such a 'creative' work.

In my own opinion, I might as well be on the side of encouraging this plagiarism activity.
When people don't know a thing, they may learn it, by mimic to how those who knew the thing.
We learn from copying, and yet after we've learnt all what the senior does, then only come the time we do our work with creativity and invent something new.

In general, Thomas Edison invented light bulb, are we going to not use this light bulb and invent another new item that will emits light by ourselves? Obviously no.

If small issue like overlooked citations, will get a lot marks cut off.
If more than a few badly cited, min marks awarded especially if whole body of work is not very outstanding.

In the case of passing off others' work as your own, get thrown out of school after disciplinary hearing.

using your example:

you take edison's bulb, present it to the jury. then you take YOUR bulb, present it to the jury. then you show how your bulb is different from edison's.

plagiarism is when:

you take edison's bulb, present it to the jury as YOURS, regardless how many changes you made.

no. but the jury might want to see how much original work have been done above it.

1. Then ASK. You have your coursemates, your professors, the teaching assistants, books, the internet.


2. So what's stopping the rest of the class from also copying ? Why should I spend countless hours reading,practicing and thinking if I can just "borrow" from the seniors ?


3. In reality, the electric bulb was first invented by Joseph Swan. And Mr Edison was not the last person to invent a light bulb either. Today we have florescent tubes & LED lights to choose from. Something we wouldn't have if everyone thinks copying is a-ok.

This post has been edited by corad: Jan 21 2013, 01:42 PM

Well for my uni you will be dragged to a hearing which would consist of the lecturers and dean if its very serious. consequences are usually suspension or being expelled off the school. if its not that serious the student would probably get a fail for the subject and resit it next semester under supervision.

In my uni, the assignment is graded with 0 marks if more than 30% plagiarism is detected with TurnItIn

Shouldn't this matter be resolved within the four walls of your uni rather than bringing this matter to public space asking for opinions? Pity the "accused".

What happens when the top decides NFA and case closed?

If your work still resembles or have the impression from the public that they are refering to the same object, with monetary gains especially, it is plagiarism

Resolved, yes. Discussed, open. The matter is being resolved by the university disciplinary board, where the students have admitted plagiarism.

Discussion about plagiarism is never taboo. Even the university ruling states that the names of the guilty must be published as a deterrent to other students. Plagiarism is the crime of the highest order in academia, keeping it hush hush would not be inline with the gravity of the crime.

Not too sure about plagiarism, but in the case of cheating during exam:

1. misconduct hearing to be held
2. student can be represented/defended
3. decision is made - if he/she found to be guilty, subject involved is to be failed for that semester.

Till now, yet to hear if there's any student getting expelled because of plagiarism. Failing the student-Yes.

No need talk about final year project

95% of the assignment you give will be copied paste work. Unless it individual basic

10% will own self do the assignment, 25% will take from answer those 10% refer and try to do it themselves, the remaining 65% will take the answer and copy blindly. The rajin type will try to modify the answer, but majority will just copy blindly.

That 65% is the worse one

Wahh, Prof. Need until buang sekolah ahh? Just beri final warning and fail for that subject enough lohh. Kena buang sekolah means those students punya future and everything will lenyap lohh. Why want so stern? How bad also they are your students mahh, Prof...

This post has been edited by bb100: Jan 22 2013, 12:07 AM

-double post-

This post has been edited by bb100: Jan 22 2013, 12:07 AM

That whats it called University Tendang Menendang (UTM) hehe

yes, the students should've thought of that before stealing other people's works and try to pass it off as their own.

it's bad enough that they are my students, but it would be worse for me if i do not take action against it. plagiarism is crime of the highest order in academia. in practice, people get banned for life from contributing in their areas of expertise for committing plagiarism. they'll get blacklisted and would never publish again, ever.

it's the same in universities. plagiarism is committed knowingly. there has to be a coherent thought process in order to plagiarise. u dont simply "ooops, i've plagiarised some people's works and tried to to pass it off as my own". if we want to be recognised as world class, then do the proper action.

buang sekolah is still considered light. they should be banned from joining other schools as well. but that's just me.

In my opinion, Prof, buang sekolah is a bit too heavy lahh the punishment. It will waste all their years of hard work and sweat. Some more they are first offenders, right? So should at least beri chance lahh sikit. Kasi mereka fail FYP is the furthest I would go, if I were in your shoes, Prof. Because kalau fail FYP, mereka dah tak boleh nak grad. So they would have to re-take their FYP. Kalau re-take pun mereka tak bertaubat, masa tu lahh Prof boleh ambil the sternest action and throw them out.

That's what I think only, Prof. Kalau Prof tak agree ke, atau ada apa-apa pandangan, Prof please share...

the point is, orang yg menipu tak patut bagi grad. they are not worthy of being awarded such credentials. if you cheat now, you will be a bigger cheat in the future.

do you want such people designing your homes? do you want such people to design the school that your kids will go to? knowing that he might cheat on the building materials or construction methods? knowing that such actions might cause the building to collapse and kill you or your children?

yes, it's a whole bunch of what ifs. but it's easier on our conscience if we only award the degrees to those who did not exhibit such behaviours rather than those who did.

i do not care for the future of such people. as far as i'm concerned, these people do not even deserve a future.

I am sure a lot of students do it for assignments and projects to a certain extent - cut and paste material from the internet. That is plagiarism too.
Buang sekolah is too harsh la, it's 5 years of hard work down the drain.
Failing the student for the subject is fair. The student has to spend extra year/semester to repeat the subject. If he commits the crime the second time, then must buang lah.

you're an architect. this is what he did:

took the entire set of final year design project drawings of previous students from a different studio (we have 9 studios), changed the name (and only the name!), and tried to pass it off during the final thesis assessment (viva) as his own.

you tell me what would you do in this case.

plagiarism IS allowed, but to a certain a limit according to each universities' policy but usually it will only be around 10-20% for a bachelor degree. in this case its almost 100% and furthermore its the student's fyp and shouldnt be tolerated so lightly. cutting and pasting info from the internet and paraphrasing is not plagiarismif you quote the source. i guess this is the difference in mentality and standards between some public & private institutions here in malaysia compared to other reputable unis.

my lecturer told me there was a phd student in taiwan got his phd title revoked after he was discovered to plagiarise just ONE SENTENCE in his thesis. and in taiwan, you need at least 6 years to complete your phd. this is how serious plagiarism is looked at in the academic world.

This post has been edited by zstan: Jan 22 2013, 02:12 PM

usually for projects they reduce 20 to 50 percentage for ur marks ,,,

The students actually dug their own graves. The question is : whether you want to bury them or not.

The briefs for the project must have been almost identical, if not how could the two students submit designs done by their seniors from previous years. The same design project was given - how could this have happened? Even if the brief is the same but site is different, this would render the designs inapplicable. From my experience from architectural school, the design briefs are different every year, thus copying is out of question.

The students were very daring but stupid enough to copy the designs wholesale. You would have expected architectural students to be smarter and more creative than that...to be able to copy creatively, modify some parts to avoid being recognized.

The examiners, being architects, could have taken more initiative and be more creative too, by not repeating the same design brief on the same site!

This post has been edited by tehtmc: Jan 22 2013, 02:40 PM

boss, why la ask forum for your utm case?

if found serious plagiarism, it should be the case of school and academy policy to work it out.

but in malaysia, serious plagiarism is putting issue with your school credibility, if you allow, if you dont allowed?

every action of so have consequences.

if FYP people copy, might as well dont do FYP right?

fail the student might be the passive punishment than kick out. but warning should be given out in verbal, if 2nd time found guilty; just kick out.

confirm fail straight. Pure plagiarism & source of previous work is similar. nothing to argue.

if you allow this to go thru, it will purely reflect how failed state the architecture creativity of Malaysia. Mean, our student work = nothing = mean architecture doesn't strive on creativity thinking/ design orientated but rather everyone can copy what singapore have....isnt it obvious.?

Oh mai, I wonder how did he did till master...sigh.

Prof, you went a bit too far with your statements (bolded part) lahh, I must say. Mereka tu buat FYP je, Prof. Bukannya Masters atau PhD. FYP tu tak ada apa-apa contribution towards the academic community of that particular area. Kalau ada pun sikit je, tak sampai 1% pun, I believe. So kalau nak kata design homes ke, design schools ke, that's too early lahh, Prof.

If this is their first offense, I think they deserve a second chance lohh. Kasi fail FYP already is their worst punishment because they would have to repeat for another year just for that particular subject...and the whole school will know about their history. Tapi buang sekolah??? I really could not see the need for that sort of punishment, Prof.

For the underlined part of your post, kalau Prof tak care pasal your students' future, buat apa nak jadi lecturer, Prof? In my opinion lahh Prof, a lecturer should always protect/fight for their students, lebih-lebih lagi mereka tu student FYP Prof.

Since when did Azarimy become a Prof?

Meaning he is a lecturer?

it's not a masters programme. this is still the final few batches of the 5 year BArch programme. the thing is, this is not a bad student. but the audacity to commit this knowingly and assume he wont get caught? either they're really brave/daring or just plain idiots.

i dont care for such people. do read my words properly. i have over 400 other students to care about; those who didnt cheat, didnt commit plagiarism, didnt commit any academic offense. i have legal duty to protect them against cheaters. if i do not push for the severest punishment, then i would not be protecting the interests of the other 400 students.

see my point?

yes, it's just a FYP. but for architecture FYP is the standard that puts u as a practicing architect. when you apply for work, the FYP is the main thing that employers look for, not the CGPA.

some people use american lingo.

Is he not a Prof? Prof as in PROFessor.

This post has been edited by bb100: Jan 22 2013, 10:16 PM

he's a Dr. a phd holder. not yet a professor.

In my uni, the policies differ from department to department, and also the nature of the assignment that was given. If it's on a normal homework assignment, usually it's zero credit for that assignment, with subsequent offences leading to an automatic failing grade, and probably some comments inserted into your school record.

However, if it's something like a term paper, those are dealt a lot more severely, with an automatic failing grade, and the possibility of being dropped from the university as well.

they have Plagiarism detection software, it will scan your assignment and will go to the net and reports the percentage of the "Plagiarism".

You take the notes from the net and use your own words to describe things.

I would think that even regular assignments should be properly cited, or references given where credit is due, much less an FYP.

Our school had an incident awhile ago which ultimately was resolved by failing the offenders' paper (which they plagiarized), but not before they went through a hearing and were given a chance to defend their case. To make sure all students are aware of the seriousness of plagiarism, our school fairly recently began to require mandatory online "modules" on what constitutes as plagiarism, which students have to complete to pass any 1st or 2nd year course, so they can't claim they have no idea they plagiarized, or "accidentally" plagiarized, as it's sometimes a pretty fine line to cross when it comes to things like self-plagiarism.

taking the whole of pass grads work is total plagiarism. Expel/ban from uni for few years might be appropriate.

If it's 1st offence my uni might let you go with a warning + redo. Then it's all downhill from there. I always try to keep mine within 15%, which I do. So far in my faculty I haven't heard drastic expels/bans though. I have heard such news from other faculties though. our uni takes plagiarism quite seriously.

Plagiarism detection software dont work with images or foreign languages like BM.