Academic Honesty & Plagiarism

Plagiarism in coursework and examinations is a serious offence for which offenders will be penalized. Without limiting the generality of this definition, plagiarism may include:

Copying or paraphrasing material from any source without due acknowledgement;

Using another’s ideas without due acknowledgement;

Working with others without permission and presenting the resulting work as though it was completed independently.

Plagiarism also relates to material such as data, images, music, formulae, and websites and computer programs. Aiding another student to plagiarize is also a violation of the Plagiarism Policy and may invoke a penalty.

Villa College expects students’ work to be genuine and original. Any student who plagiarises does not maintain the academic honesty expected by the College and such behaviour is therefore deemed as academic misconduct.

In order to detect plagiarism, Villa College will use TURNITIN – a text matching software used to detect un-cited work from a huge pool of academic submission. All students who are enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Villa College will be required to submit their assessment task for all modules, with few exceptions, through TURNITIN. A maximum TURNITIN score is stipulated in the Villa College Procedure on Plagiarism. This procedure is available from the Villa College website. Please make sure that you read this procedure and follow the guidelines when submitting assessment components.