Academic Integrity is defined by the International Centre for Academic Integrity as “a commitment to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. By embracing these fundamental values, instructors, students, staff, and administrators create effective scholarly communities where integrity is a touchstone. Without them, the work of teachers, learners, and researchers loses value and credibility” Where these values are not upheld by a student, the work presented may constitute a breach of academic integrity in the form of Poor Academic Practice or Academic Misconduct.
Poor academic practice is defined within the University’s Student Misconduct Regulations as unintentional low-level infringements of the General Assessment Regulations that may be interpreted as a lack of understanding on the part of the student.
Turnitin is a service that helps you avoid unintentional plagiarism. You will normally use this service prior to submitting the work for marking.
The Similarity Checker Tool allows you to check draft versions of your work before final submission. It identifies how similar your work is compared to other content in its database, which includes sources from the internet, academic publications, and other student papers.
Please note that Turnitin does not check for plagiarism in writing. Turnitin states that they "check all submissions against our database. If any text in a submission is similar to one of our sources, these matches are highlighted for you to review."
Please see the Turnitin page of this guide for guides on using and understanding Turnitin and the Similarity Checker Tool.
If you are in any doubt about good academic practice scholarship, referencing practice, or plagiarism/collusion, please seek advice and help. Such advice and guidance is available from programme tutors, QMU's Effective Learning Service and Liaison Librarians.
Academic misconduct is defined within the University’s General Assessment Regulations and the Student Misconduct Regulations as cheating or any attempt by a student to gain an unfair advantage in any assessment, including an examination. Where a student is suspected of academic misconduct, the provisions of the Student Misconduct Regulations will apply.
Plagiarism
The process or practice of using another person’s ideas or work and pretending it is your own. This includes E-cheating, specifically the unauthorized and unattributed use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in written assignments, and essay banks.
Collusion
Agreement between students to act together to deceive or unauthorised collaboration by students on a piece of work or assessment.
Falsification
Changing, creating or misrepresenting information or data in order to deceive.
Examination room misconduct
Any breach of the exam regulations, including the use of unauthorised material, disruptive behaviour, and any attempt to copy or confer with other students.
Online exam misconduct
Any breach of the exam regulations, including use of unauthorised material and any attempt to confer or collaborate with other students or third parties
According to the QMU Academic Integrity Policy 2025:
3.1 Students will act with academic integrity.
3.2 Students are responsible for the integrity of their own learning and will ensure familiarity with the University’s General Assessment Regulations, individual Programme Regulations and other relevant policies and regulations, including the Student Misconduct regulations.
3.3 Students will access the relevant support available to them on their programme of study to ensure any work presented meets the standard of the programme.
3.4 The University General Assessment Regulations set out the wider responsibilities of all students being assessed to:
• Recognise the role of assessment in the achievement and recognition of their learning.
• Familiarise themselves with the assessment schedule and assessment specification for all modules on their programme, including an awareness of the extent to which generative AI can be used in any given assessment.
• Familiarise themselves with the examination periods (both first attempt and reassessment and make themselves available for the examination period).
Attend examinations and observe the Instruction to Candidates in such Examinations.
• Attend all other types of assessment, for example, practical examinations, class tests and presentations.
• Submit all work for assessment in accordance with the requirements for their programme.
• Engage with the published process for requesting extenuating circumstances in advance of the Board of Examiners.
3.5 Students are not permitted to substantially reproduce the same piece of course work for more than one module, except where they are explicitly required to do so by the assignment specification.
3.6 Students must not submit work of which they are not the author as if it is their own work. Fraudulent practices such as copying, collusion, plagiarism (i.e. the presentation by an individual of another person’s ideas or work, in any medium, published or unpublished, as though they were their own) are serious academic offences and will incur appropriate penalties.
3.7 Such work would include, but is not limited to work obtained from an essay bank or website essay writing service, or produced by an Artificial Intelligence language model programme. Such presentation is cheating and will be dealt with under the University’s Student Misconduct Regulations.
3.8 All students are expected to seek clear guidance on the form and manner in which assessments are to be completed. If a student has engaged in fraudulent practices as described above, for whatever reason, they are encouraged to declare this to the module coordinator before such work is submitted, and to seek guidance on how to make good their standing with the subject and the University.
3.9 The University has a policy to use the TurnItIn UK similarity checker, or other equivalent systems, to help students avoid plagiarism and improve their scholarship skills. This service is available to all matriculated students at QMU. Students will use the programmes provided to check the similarity and originality of their work.
Academic staff may submit student work to TurnItIn UK or another equivalent system.
3.10 Students must ensure the proper acknowledgement of the borrowings from other sources, whether published or unpublished.