Three students were during Wednesday last week convicted of plagiarism by the Disciplinary Board. Supplied with a new policy the faculties will have more tools to prevent cheating among the students.
During yesterday’s meeting at the Disciplinary Board five cases were discussed. Four of them were about students suspected of plagiarism and the fifth was related to disturbance of order.
”One of the students had copied texts from web pages and used it in a home assignment. The second student had copied another student’s assignment and the third had copied an exam text from a key”, says Hanna Stam, assistant lawyer at Lund University.
The students were sentenced to suspension from three to four weeks, and will during this time lose their right to receive financial support from CSN.
The fourth student had been convicted earlier for plagiarism and suspended from the university, but had ignored the suspension and was now convicted of disturbance of order. The student received an additional two month’s suspension.
Not more than a month ago a new policy was established at Lund University giving clearer advice on the rules of Högskoleförordningen (University Enactment) regarding plagiarism.
The new policy is going to help teachers and employees at the university to judge whether a student should be suspected of plagiarism. The policy also includes additional guidelines to how the faculties should work to prevent the students from cheating. The faculties are even assigned to introduce examining elements in which it is very difficult to cheat.
”The aim is to teach the students how to write academically and to motivate them to learn”, says Hanna Stam.
The disciplinary issues have during 2012 been reduced compared to the previous year. During 2012 65 students were reported cheating, compared to 95 reports during 2011.
text: Anna-Maria Holmgren
translation: Lars Jansson
