Academic integrity

[Audio] For my assignment on business models, I used some of the slides from a lecture. I didn't see a

problem with this. The lecturer had uploaded the slides onto Canvas and made them available. The lecturer said they would be useful for this

particular assignment. So I took a few points from the slides and added these to my assignment. I

assumed this was OK, and I have to admit that I copied some of the text in the slides directly and

didn't bother to explain in my own words. It was hard to try to paraphrase something when it was

already explained so well in the slides. I couldn't think of a better way to say it. Anyway,

the lecturer noticed that and said I should have at least referenced her slides. The lecturer also

mentioned that other parts of my assignment were directly copied from a journal article. This was

picked up by Turnitin. I was surprised. I didn't think Turnitin would find that stuff and it just

finds any quotes anyway. So what's the point? Because of this, I ended up losing 20 percent of my marks and I

got a warning from my course coordinator. This warning stays on my academic record. They told me

this was an academic integrity breach and that if anything like this happened again, I could end up

with a more severe penalty under the student conduct policy. I remember a student saying that

if they stayed under a particular percentage of the Turnitin score, they wouldn't- it wouldn't

count as plagiarism. But unfortunately, it's still cheating. And it's unfortunate. You know, a lot of

students think the same. They do it a few times, and when they're actually caught, they realize how

much of a penalty it is and how so not worth it. You know, mainly because cheating is cheating.

There are a lot of resources available- there's library resources. And I'm pretty sure academics-

they're more than willing to support students with issues around plagiarism. It's always better to

learn as much as you can about student conduct, plagiarism, collusion and all that stuff. Once you

get the hang of things- how to reference- once you know how it all works, what counts is stealing

another person's ideas and what doesn't. That goes a long way because once you practice- once you're

in your third year, it just comes naturally. It's always good to be honest and submit what you can

on time. Better safe than sorry.

[Audio] We had a assignment about microbiology, I had chosen bacteria for my topic. My friend Discord channel mentioned she was doing bacteria too. But she was a little bit confused about assignment questions. She sometimes struggles with English sentences and she has so much pressure from her parents to pass. Same as me. I said I could help her out and uploaded my assignment on Discord so she could check it out. Boy and girl, that's not a good idea. Later, I find out that she had copied some of my assignment. I knew it would happen- which I didn't think she was going to do. I was hoping that my assignment was just to help her understand the topic. The lecturer said it was clear that we all had colluded. I didn't even know what that meant. I thought I was just helping her out. I wasn't giving it to her to cheat. Because we all had colluded, we were reported to a senior officer and invited to student contact hearings. We both ended up with penalties where we failed the assessment. I know now that I shouldn't be uploading or sharing any of my assessments, as it is an academic integrity breach. I got some experience like someone after my assignments when I was an international student. It was from my close friends, but I didn't know what they are going to do with my assignments, so I might put myself into trouble so I didn't give it to them. But after a few days, I heard my friend said she got an email from the university and she got cheated because of repeating other people's assignment. It always happens in my country when I was a student because this is not something very serious. Or like, get to that serious level. But I know the importance of if you breach the integrity in Australian universities, it might be a big issue and make you into trouble. Someone told me that a student uploaded their assignment to check and was caught because the course coordinator always go to that site every thirty minutes. And will make a list of the student's names, who uploaded their assignments and those who accessed those assignments. If I were those students, I wouldn't upload any of my assessments to public channels.

[Audio] So, I was talking to a friend in the corridor after class, he'd asked me if I'd done the politics essay. I told him I hadn't yet, that I needed to do it.

Over the weekend. I was really stressed as I hadn't even managed to find references for it, and I had to work all weekend.

Then this other student pops into our convo and she says she'll do it for me. She said she'd done that assignment before and that it would be easy to do.

Even said she kept get me an HD. OK, sounds like a bit of a scam. I wondered what the catch was, and she laughed and said her time doesn't come for free.

She said if I paid her one hundred bucks, I'd coast in with a HD.

First I said, I don't get HD's so it might look a bit strange. And she goes, Yeah sure, I'll dumb it down a bit. I was a little miffed.

She said it would be fine. I would get good credit. I said, OK, we exchanged emails, I got her bank account details.

I submitted the assignment and I thought it was all OK but my course coordinator asked me to meet with them to talk about my assignment.

Oh dear, busted.

They asked me questions about academic integrity and my assignment. I couldn't answer the questions because I hadn't done the assignment.

At the end of the meeting, they let me know they were going to refer us to someone called a senior officer for consideration under the student conduct policy.

This is how you know it's getting real. I was going to really I was really scared and really wished I hadn't paid someone to do my assignment.

I also realized I didn't learn anything from that course, and I wonder how I'm going to progress my program. You're not. You're not. It's over.

Not too long after that, I was invited to a hearing with a senior officer. Not only did I fail the assignment, but I failed the course.

This has cost me a lot because I have to pay for the course again and it delays my graduation.

I mean, that kind of reminds me of a friend as well who was in a bit of a similar situation.

But they went to this like tutoring website. It seemed pretty legit. And then it kind of turned out to be a bit of a scam.

They kind of kept hassling them for money which is a big thing. So they ended up hearing about peer mentoring from RMIT.

They've got this app now called Viago and they're able to reach out to their peer mentor on Viago and just get all their questions answered.

It was so much more legit, totally business.

And some of the hearings I've been in a pretty intense, where like, they got adjourned for three months so the cyber security team go through people's emails like it's full on like Hillary Clinton business.

And then the students get in there and it's like it's - you can get through this if we like you, and if you don't lie to us.

And we've got the emails, we've got the WhatsApp messages, we've got everything. And they'll just go "I didn't do it".

Buddy, we see the confession. We see everything. Don't do this. But you come in and you lie and it's like, I can't help you.

You know, you're like - it's like the car is like, huddling towards the edge of the cliff at that point.

The cars in the air, the cliffs back there. Right? And I'm like throwing you a lifeline here so you can Indiana Jones it back to the cliff. Right?

And if you lie in a hearing, you're cutting the rope. Like, I can't help you at that point.