Respect yourself - value honesty and fairness
Manage your time
Read and understand the assignment brief
Reference accurately
Academic integrity is acting in an honest, moral and fair way to complete any academic tasks in an academic setting (QQI, 2020). This includes class work, exams and assessments, whether completed on campus or remotely.
There are five basic values in academic integrity: Honesty, Trust, Fairness, Respect, and Responsibility, and Courage, which is sometimes needed to always uphold these values (International Center for Academic Integrity, 2014).
Academic integrity underpins any work that you do: assessments in class, at home, exams and alternative assessments.
Plagiarism can take many forms, and can include the following.
Copying parts of your assignment without acknowledging the source of the information.
Not acknowledging direct quotes in your work, even if you have cited.
Paraphrasing without citing the source of the information.
Incomplete or inaccurate citations in your work.
Collusion – getting assistance from someone to complete work that should be you own.
Collaborating – working with others to complete an assignment that is an individual assignment.
Self-plagiarism – reusing your own work that you have previously submitted for an assessment.
Buying assignments – this is also called contract cheating. This is dishonest and does not reflect your learning in any way. It can also have a serious impact on your future.
AIT Plagiarism Policy outlines a penalty grid that will be applied. The year you are in, the value of your assignment and your history of academic misconduct all impact on the consequence that you will face.
Penalties can range from receiving zero for your assignment, failing and having to repeat the module, or facing the college disciplinary committee.
You will also lose self-respect. Think about how you will explain your decision to cheat to your friends or explain to a future employer why you had to repeat a module in your course.
Plagiarism is not fair to your classmates. If you cheat you are disrespecting their efforts to achieve on their own merits. How will you explain your behaviour to them?
ALL STUDENTS SHOULD
Act in an honourable manner
Any work you submit is a demonstration of what you have learnt. Always try to do your best and act with integrity.
Complete the AIT Plagiarism Disclaimer
When you upload your work on Moodle you are asked to acknowledge that you have read and understood AIT’s statement on plagiarism.
Paraphrase your research
Retell the ideas you have read in your own words and acknowledge the sources.
Know how to reference
Make it your business to find out how to reference your assignments. Check what referencing style your faculty uses.
Download the Library guide or the referencing style you must use and follow it when you are completing your assignments.
Intentional plagiarism is where you deliberately choose to pass off work that has been written by someone else as your own.
Unintentional or accidental plagiarism is usually the result not taking time and care to review and check that your work meets all the academic requirements. While you may not have set out to deliberately plagiarise, your work will show that you have not acknowledged the sources of your information and as a result is plagiarised.
