Using published or unpublished material or ideas, without acknowledging the original source, is known as plagiarism.

It is an academic offence which is taken very seriously by the University and of which all students need to have a thorough understanding.

Plagiarism takes many forms including reusing your own work without acknowledgement.

Students have a responsibility to:

• maintain their understanding of the meaning of, and rules defining, plagiarism and other assessment and examination offences and their consequences, throughout their programme of study;

• review every submission for assessment for errors in the referencing or citing others’ work;

• and will be required to make a declaration when they submit a piece of assessed coursework in either hard or electronic copy, that the work is their own.

You can find out more about the penalties for academic misconduct and read the University's full code of practice using the link below.

All students receive advice and guidance on plagiarism and other assessment offences in course handbooks and through information on the university website and resources.

The Library provides training resources to all students. These include the Library’s guide to referencing and Bloomsbury’s Skills for Study modules.

Use the link below to access these and other resources from the Library.

E-cheating involves 'student violations of academic integrity through the use of any technology orientated device' (D.L. King & Case, 2014).

A guide on e-cheating in virtual assessments is available on the Academic Misconduct (cheating) in Online Exams webpage. Please make sure you have read and understood this guide in addition to your Academic Integrity Training as there will be related questions on the Academic Integrity Test.

ALL students registering on an award at the University, including doctoral students, are required to undertake an academic integrity training session and satisfactorily complete a test of understanding.

It is expected that all students will undertake the training and complete the test within a short time after entry. This is intended to provide every student with a common minimum baseline of skills and knowledge of good educational and academic practice at an early stage, and thus assist them in preparing assignments while avoiding inadvertent assessment offences, particularly plagiarism.

The test is accessible via your Moodle homepage. Use the link below to find the test for your course.

When you hand in a piece of assessed coursework, you will be expected to make a declaration that the work is your own and, where you have re-used your own work and/or used other sources of information, that you have referenced the material appropriately.

The University uses Ouriginal to check that academic integrity is being maintained. This service checks electronic, text-based submissions against a large database of material from other sources and, for each submission, produces an 'analysis report’. It makes no judgement on the intention behind the inclusion of unoriginal work; it simply highlights its presence and links to the original source, enabling the person reviewing the report to determine whether or not plagiarism has occurred.

The service complies with European Data Protection legislation. When you registered with the University, you gave it permission to process your personal data for a variety of legitimate purposes. This includes allowing the University to disclose such data to third parties for purposes relating to your studies. The University, at its sole discretion, may submit the work of any student to the Similarity Checking Service (in accordance with Regulation 15.4 – see below) and may make, or authorise third parties to make, copies of any such work for the purposes of: - assessment of the work - comparison with databases of earlier work or previously available works to confirm the work is original - addition to databases of works used to ensure that future works submitted at this institution and others do not contain content from the work submitted - the University will not make any more copies of your work than are necessary, and will only retain these for so long as remains necessary, for these purposes

Please note that, if at any time the University submits any of your work to the Similarity Checking Service, the service will be provided with, and will retain, certain personal data relating to you – for example, your name, email address, programme details and the work submitted. Such data may be transferred by the Similarity Checking Service to countries worldwide (some of which may not be governed by EU data legislation) in order for the work to be checked and an originality report generated in accordance with the proper workings of the Similarity Checking Service. Personal data is retained indefinitely by the Similarity Checking Service upon submission of work. You may ask for your personal data to be removed by contacting the University’s Data Protection Officer.

Further information

The University's full description of procedures on Examination and Assessment Offences (QA53).

Regulation 15, Assessment of undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes.

University Data Protection Officer

In addition to the guidance and training resources provided by the Library (see above), the Skills Centre runs a Skills Hub to help you get the most out of your time at Bath. There are opportunities to develop your study skills so that you are confident in taking notes, thinking critically, writing academically, presenting professionally, using mathematical tools and techniques, and enhancing your digital skills.

Visit the Skills Centre webpages and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) Module for more information and guidance, or contact academicskills@bath.ac.uk.