Submitting shared work – Academic Integrity

code | scenario | smart strategies | consequences

Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters

1. It shall be an offence for a student knowingly:

(d) to represent as one’s own an idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work, i.e. to commit plagiarism;

Wherever in the Code an offence is described as depending on “knowing”, the offence shall likewise be deemed to have been committed if the person ought reasonably to have known.

Scenario – Submitting shared work

You and your friend have worked together on your assignments since first year. You have been on the same design teams and have been lab partners. You like to write up your lab reports together. You work very hard on these reports and are very proud of your work. You realize that what you hand in is often the same, but you figure it does not matter because it was the same lab, even though the instructions explicitly state that lab reports must be written independently.

Recently, your TA overheard a student in the hallway boasting about how he had not written up a single lab report all year, but simply handed in the same lab report as his lab partner. Concerned, the TA carefully re‐examined the lab reports she had just graded. She discovered that you and your friend had many identical passages, including identical grammar mistakes.

The Issue

Unless an instructor has specifically requested you to work in groups and submit shared work as a group, submitting the same assignment is an academic offence. The importance of producing original work is not only to prevent academic misconduct but to also maintain the intellectual creativity of the individual.

Smart Strategies

Group work; Students sharing academic work
It is best for you to speak to your instructor about the situation you are in before he/she approaches you.
Be sure to approach your work independently – while you may work with some of your friends if that is permitted by the instructor in the course; ensure that the work you finally submit is your own.

Range of Consequences

For a discussion of consequences see Key Consequences.