You need to follow the guidelines in Policy and Procedure. The below information is a summary -- the student and teacher guides linked above have much more information including conversation starters and 

• Any work that is found to be plagiarised will incur a penalty ranging from a written reprimand and warning, through to the cancellation of all assessment results for Years 11 and 12 

• Students who unintentionally plagiarise must be given appropriate counselling and guidance so that they do not repeat the offence 

• The impact on unit scores of the penalties imposed for serious and repeated instances of plagiarism will be managed in accordance with the Board of Senior Secondary Studies policies. 

Colleges need to ensure that they have appropriate procedures for dealing with breaches of discipline in relation to school-based assessments. Details of the college’s procedures must be published by the college and drawn to the attention of students and parents.

College procedures are to incorporate the following steps:

• Any suspected breach of discipline in relation to assessment is to be investigated initially by the teacher

• If there is evidence of a breach of discipline, the student must be interviewed by the teacher and the head of faculty and given the opportunity to explain his/her case before a penalty is determined

• If a breach of discipline is shown to have occurred, then the teacher in conjunction with the head of faculty should determine the penalty taking into account the principles and the penalty schedule outlined in the following section on Penalties

• Colleges should ensure that there is a common understanding across the school of the different categories of plagiarism and the penalties to be applied

• The student must be advised in writing within five working days (except in Semester 2 of Year 12, where it is two working days) of any penalty imposed and informed that he/she has the right to appeal the decision to a College Appeal Committee

• The principles of natural justice must be applied at all stages in the process

The Executive Director of the BSSS must also be consulted, in advance, if the recommended penalty is the cancellation of all completed assessment in a course.

• Colleges are to keep a file of all significant breaches of discipline in relation to school-based assessments and provide the Executive Director of the BSSS with those details when a student appeals to the Board.

4.3.12.5 Penalties: Advice to Colleges

Any one or more of the following actions could be taken for a breach of discipline in relation to assessment:

a. reprimand of the candidate, except in cases where the candidate would have derived benefit from such breaches

b. the making of alternative arrangements for the assessment (e.g. through a reassessment)

c. the assessment marked without the material subject to the breach being considered

d. imposition of a mark penalty appropriate to the extent of the breach

e. cancellation of the result in the particular component of the college assessment concerned

f. cancellation of the total college assessment result in the unit/course concerned

g. cancellation of all the candidate’s results for years 11 and 12 in assessments conducted.

If cheating is suspected but cannot be substantiated by traditional means (e.g., text matching or anti-plagiarism software), a teacher in conjunction with the head of faculty could consider introducing a validation task to confirm the student’s ability to meet the unit goals and achievement standards.

Elements that may indicate possible cheating:

• Mismatch between quality of student responses in formative and summative assessments

• Significant similarities between student responses that cannot be explained by context

• Student self-report or discussion of cheating (e.g., talking in the library or another class about having cheated on a particular task)

• Mismatch between knowledge and understanding demonstrated in class and in work

• Misuse of language indicating lack of understanding of vocabulary and/or material

• Misuse of quotations/sources indicating lack of understanding of vocabulary and/or material

• Misuse of language indicating appropriation of multiple sources

It is important to note that suspicion does not mean a student has cheated. False positives are both normal and expected. The validation task happens after the initial conference between teacher and student as per BSSS Policy and Procedure, and after the student has had opportunity to present any evidence supporting the originality of their work (e.g., document histories). The validation task only happens if there is still uncertainty about the authorship of the student’s work.

Validation tasks may include:

• An interview or spoken examination with the student. Another teacher must be present, and a friend or parent/carer may be brought by the student if so wished. Neither the second teacher nor any support person the student brings may interfere.

Things that may occur in the interview:

• Check student’s understanding of topic and major arguments

• Check student’s understanding of sources they used

• Check specific phrasing or word use (e.g., if a student has used the word “sclerotic” to describe the passage of legislation, do they know what it means in this context?)

• An alternative validation task is a supervised validation test or piece of writing about the topic undertaken under conditions where there is no access to the internet or generative AI. No support person is necessary for this validation task type unless mitigating circumstances exist.

If the validation is found to be substantially different to the submitted task, or the student is unable to replicate understanding from submitted task to the validation task, normal plagiarism penalties will apply. For example, in a first instance where AI plagiarism is suspected, it is appropriate to give the student the opportunity to resubmit without the plagiarised content included.

The student is advised to maintain clear records of work on any subsequent tasks.