Please note the following changes to the provisions on Academic Integrity in the BSSS Policy and Procedures Manual highlighted in blue text. This gives teacher recourse to ensure work submitted is ethical. 

4.3.12 Academic Integrity

The Board is committed to a system of school-based assessment and views seriously any breach of the rules or instructions governing that assessment.

Any cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, alteration of results, improper or unethical research practices in relation to any school-based assessment in any subject accredited or registered by the Board shall constitute a breach of discipline. This includes any tampering with the assessment data on computer files by a student.

In designing assessment tasks, teachers should ensure that the tasks lend themselves to uphold academic integrity.

In supporting students in undertaking tasks, teachers must ensure students follow the BSSS Ethical Research Principles and Guidelines as a key element of Academic Integrity (See appendix 9). Ethical research in BSSS Senior Secondary classes is research that is honest, genuine and protects the participant and the researcher from more than negligible risk of harm.

4.3.12.1            Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the copying, paraphrasing, or summarising of work, in any form, without acknowledgement of sources, and presenting this as a student’s own work.

Examples of plagiarism could include, but are not limited to:

•      submitting all or part of another person’s work with/without that person’s knowledge

•      submitting all or part of a paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement

•      copying part of another person’s work from a source text, supplying proper documentation, but leaving out quotation marks

•      submitting materials which paraphrase or summarise another person’s work or ideas without appropriate documentation

•      submitting a digital image, sound, design, photograph, or animation, altered or unaltered, without proper acknowledgement of the source.

4.3.12.2            Student information

Schools are responsible for informing students about what constitutes plagiarism and the appropriate ways of acknowledging sources. Positive advice should also be offered about how students can avoid plagiarism. Advice on plagiarism should be provided to students well before their first assessment item is due. In addition, schools are also responsible for ensuring students are informed about ethical research and the procedures associated.

Schools must also inform students that any incident of plagiarism or unethical research will be treated as a serious breach of discipline in assessment and the penalties that may be imposed.

BSSS brochures on plagiarism are available from http://www.bsss.act.edu.au/information_for_students/whats_plagiarism_how_to_avoid_it to provide advice to students.

4.3.12.3            Verification

Schools are required to institute a system whereby work submitted includes a statement from the student on each assessment item done outside class time to the effect that the work presented is their own and has been conducted ethically.

Where a school uses text matching software, provided that:

a)     the software makes it a condition for submission of work that the student confirm that the work is their own, OR

b)    the report generated by the software explicitly includes a statement from the student that the work is their own, then a report from the software is acceptable as a statement from the student.

For research involving human participants, schools will ensure that work submitted includes the appropriate teacher permission, risk assessment and consent forms required for human-based research tasks.

4.3.12.4            Breaches of Discipline in Relation to Assessment

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

School 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

•      Schools should ensure that there is a common understanding across the school of the different categories of academic misconduct 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 school 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

•      Schools 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.

Examine your school policies and procedures for Academic integrity. What will need updating to ensure students are informed and systems meet BSSS Policy and Procedures requirements?