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is
a euphemism for cheating — the act of stealing someone else's
work and claiming ownership.
, such
as wearing School colours, special honorary badges, using certificates
or qualifications that have been awarded to someone else, is also
a form of intellectual theft.
is a synonym
for cheating and is the act of taking and using, for example, the
thoughts, writings, inventions, creations or oral presentations
of another person as one's own. The word, plagiarise, stems from
the Latin plagiarius, meaning 'kidnapper' - one who steals something
and demands a ransom. So, a plagiarist is someone who steals something
and wants credit for it - a most underhanded, deceitful and unlawful
action. Plagiarism can take a number of forms, such as:
• exactly reproducing
another's words
• expressing
the meaning of another's words in different words
• reproducing
the main points of another's argument
• copying, paraphrasing
or summarising the work of a number of different people and piecing
them together to produce one body of text
None of these practices is wrong in itself, but use of one or more,
without acknowledgement, constitutes plagiarism, and will not be
tolerated. Therefore, all sources must be adequately and accurately
acknowledged.*
Intellectual theft is a serious crime in the adult world and forms
the basis of much expensive litigation. Both Melbourne High School
and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) maintain
that students will be penalised for plagiarism, which is a serious
breach of rules. The VCAA's statistical analysis comparing student's
School Assessed Coursework / Task results with their GAT results
and any available examination results in the same study is used
to identify students with unexpectedly high results in their school
assessments. For each student identified, schools will be notified
of the need to review the authenticity of the student's school-assessed
work and the student's understanding of the work. The school must
then report the outcomes to the VCAA.
MELBOURNE HIGH SCHOOL ASSESSMENT RULES
Melbourne High School
sets down six general rules that all students in years 9, 10,
11 and 12 must observe when preparing work for assessment. These
rules apply to all examinations, tests, assessment tasks, homework
tasks, VCE School Assessed Coursework and VCE School Assessed
Tasks. They are: |
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A student must ensure that all
unacknowledged work submitted for assessment is genuinely his
own. |
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A student must acknowledge all
resources used, including:
• Texts, media material, visual material, websites and
any other source material that is the intellectual property
of someone else.
• The name(s) and status of any person(s) who provided
assistance and the type of assistance provided. |
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A student must not receive undue
assistance from any other person in the preparation and submission
of work. |
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• Use of, or copying of, another person's work or other
resources without acknowledgment
• Corrections or improvements made or dictated by another
person.
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• The incorporation of ideas or material derived from other
sources (e.g. by reading, viewing or note-taking) but which
has been transformed by the student and used in a new context,
and
• Prompting and general advice from another person or source
which leads to refinements and/or self-correction.
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4. |
A student must not submit the
same piece of work for assessment in more than one subject. |
5. |
A student who knowingly assists
other students in a breach of rules may be penalised. |
6. |
A student must observe the examination
and test conditions that apply to each subject; anything outside
these conditions constitutes cheating. |
Consequences
for breaking assessment rules |
Should a student
breach these rules, the appropriate penalties will apply, as
set out below: |
i. |
The student will be reprimanded
through detention, suspension or expulsion. |
ii. |
The work that infringes the rules
will not be accepted and the decision to award the outcome N (not satisfactory) or S (satisfactory) will be made
upon the remainder of the work. |
iii. |
A teacher can refuse to accept
any part of the work if the infringement is judged as a serious
authentication issue and
• N will be awarded for
the outcome
• NA will be submitted
for the School-Assessed Coursework or School-Assessed Task. |
Teachers have been
asked to report to the appropriate Year Level Coordinator when
a breach of rules is apparent. The Year Level Coordinator, or
in serious cases, the Principal, shall determine which of the
above penalties shall be imposed. This may result in a change
of the original outcome result from S to N. At VCE level, if N is awarded for an outcome, then, as a consequence, N will be awarded for the unit concerned. Similarly, the detected
breach of rules may result in a score change for the task. In
the case of VCE units, this score change is to be communicated
to the VCAA.
If there is sufficient time before the due dates designated
by the School or the VCAA, the student may have the opportunity
to resubmit work for satisfactory completion. |
| Read
the MHS Anti-Plagiarism Guide |
* The forms of plagiarism,
as defined, are extracts from Steven Tudor's A Guide to Researching
and Writing Philosophy Essays, 3rd edition, for The Department
of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne, 1997. |
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