IUT Plagiarism Policy

Introduction

Academic integrity always leads the students as well as academicians, the choice to develop innovative and new ideas, knowledge and resourceful works while respecting and acknowledging the contribution of others.

The International Center for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as a commitment to five basic values such as honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. So, academic integrity means putting those values into practice by being honest in the academic work you do at university.

Importance of Academic Integrity

Having academic integrity is important for several reasons:

• Trust: Having academic integrity means that others can trust you
• Value to your degree: Having academic integrity provides value to your degree
• Employment prospects: Employers prefer to hire graduates whom they believe to have high personal integrity
• Leadership opportunities: When you live with integrity, you're more likely to be considered for important promotions and leadership positions

Scope and Application

Maintaining academic integrity is a challenging task. At any level in the organization/University, such as students, faculty and staff are included for the practice and application of rules of academic misconduct.

Description of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an aspect of academic integrity in that using another's ideas, words, theories, illustrations or graphics, opinions or facts without giving credit is dishonest. One of the most common and unintentional violations of academic integrity is plagiarism.

Examples of Academic Misconduct

The cases of academic misconduct are not limited, and may be highlighted by the following:

1. When someone uses straight-forwardly someone else's words, ideas, or data, without citing the sources
2. When copying assignments, examination scripts, laboratory reports, thesis, journal articles, or computer code
3. When fabricating other's generated data or experimental results
4. When using unauthorized aids or assistance in one's writing or examination, test, or other form of academic work
5. When falsifying or altering a record and manipulating it and permitting another person to do so
6. When allowing others the possibility of using academic materials either or providing other students with false or misleading data will be treated as initiation of plagiarism

Specific Cases Treated as Plagiarism by IUT

• Copying in the manuscripts or any form of reports for Examinations/ Assignments/ Quizzes/ Presentations/ Lab reports etc.
• Copying any form of writing or using data or figures without permissions or citations in writing thesis both at undergraduate or postgraduate level
• Using others statements or concepts or data or any sorts of information without proper permissions in any type of articles for publications

Different Forms and Levels of Plagiarism

Forms of Plagiarism

Intentional Plagiarism:

• If anyone downloads/ copies/ buys a complete work (paper/ thesis/ book chapters) or part of it that was authored by someone else, but pretends it to be his/her own work
• If anyone incorporates someone else's words and/or concepts into his/her own work, but the original author is not accredited with proper citation
• If someone reuses his/ her own work (assignment/ paper/ thesis/ articles) more than once, whereas original work is expected

Unintentional Plagiarism:

• If anyone fails to cite the sources accidentally
• If someone does not cite information in his/ her work that has been paraphrased (or should have been included within quotation marks)
• If the paraphrasing/ quoting is not done in a proper manner

Levels of Plagiarism

Assessment of Plagiarism

As plagiarism is a serious academic misconduct, proper judgment of it is necessary. In order to judge plagiarism, measurement of similarity of content is important. Normally, similarity of a document is measured by cross matching the submitted content to a repository, which comprises thousands of other people's published work, previous submissions, and any general web content.

Similarity Assessment Tools

There are various tools for measuring this similarity. All the tools provide an index value for expressing the significance of plagiarism:

• Google Classroom: Offers originality check which only works for "Google doc" file
• Turnitin: Widely used tool which provides a similarity value termed as Similarity Index (SI)

Turnitin Refinement Tools

• Exclude small sources: Eliminates sources with lower percentage than threshold value
• Exclude quotes and bibliography: Quotes and bibliography will not be counted in similarity percentage
• Exclude full sources: Prohibits particular source from being matched
• Generate new similarity report: Obtains revised percentage with updated database

Preventive Measures against Plagiarism

Awareness Development

As the idea of plagiarism is unfamiliar in the context of Bangladesh, it will be beneficial if training and awareness development campaigns are conducted regularly. Following recommendations are proposed:

• Course offerings such as Technical report writing, Engineering Ethics should be included for all programs
• Arranging Webinars/ Seminars for faculty, staff and students
• During 1st year orientation, UG thesis group orientation and PG student orientation, students should be made aware of the rules and punishment

Responsibilities

Faculty Responsibility

Course Teacher:

• Ensure that students are familiar with the rules and examples
• May warn the offending student and/or penalize full or partial marks of the plagiarized submission
• Must inform the concerned student and HOD about such action with proper proof
• May refer serious cases to the AIC through HOD

Thesis Supervisor:

• Must delegate significant time to inform students on plagiarism issues
• Ensure any official submission is free from plagiarism
• Students must receive a copy of this policy officially
• Student must submit a similarity report as an appendix with final submission

Teacher as Researcher:

• Must submit similarity report to departmental PGC before final publication
• If similarity report is below 20% overall with no single source having more than 5%, may proceed with publication
• Cases exceeding limits should be referred to AIC

Student Role

• Understand what plagiarism is
• Understand the penalty
• Check thesis using software at library with supervisor approval
• Provide 'Form 8: Declaration of Candidate on Intellectual Integrity'
• Add similarity report as an Appendix with submission

Other Roles

• REASP: Arrangement of Workshops/Seminars for building awareness
• Librarian: Provide software access and check documentation during thesis submission
• Alumni: Awareness building and understanding consequences

Ways to Deal with Complaints on Plagiarism

For Academic Works (Exams/Assignments/Quizzes/Presentations/Lab reports)

For Thesis (PG/UG)

Similar process as academic works, with Board of Examiners performing initial check and Thesis Committee involvement.

For Publications

Publications fall under IUT jurisdiction if authors use IUT affiliation or research is IUT-funded. Similar investigation process applies.

For Alumni Thesis

Department receives complaint and performs initial screening through thesis committee before following standard AIC process.

Probable Actions against a Plagiarist

Actions against Faculty Member/Staff

• Withdrawal of all published works in which research or academic misconduct was proved
• Correction of all pending works in which research or academic misconduct was established
• Removal from particular project, warning letter, monitoring of future work
• Reduction of salary for specific period
• Reimbursement of research funds to grantor agency (if applicable)

Actions against Student

• Level-1 (First time): Warning letter
• Level-1/2/3 (Second time): Grade F or suspension for not less than one term
• Repeated offender: Expulsion from University for good
• Level-2/3 offenders cannot hold positions in University organizations or committees
• Discontinuation of scholarships/grants
• Restriction on course enrollment

Actions against Alumni

• Level-1: Warning letter
• Level-2/3: Ban for certain duration