Academic fraud

Academic fraud is

• in an assessment of learning outcomes, the use of any materials, help, or AI-based applications that the lecturer has not explicitly permitted;
• requesting and using unauthorised assistance, for example, prompting, copying
  others’ work, using other student’s help during individual assessment;
• sharing of knowledge, which is not permitted by teaching staff;
• participating in the assessment of another student, unless it is allowed;
• presenting the work of another person under your name or deliberate use of parts
  of it without proper academic referencing (plagiarism) or
• submission of the one’s own work again in the same or another course, unless the
  teaching staff has allowed it.

See also videos about academic fraud created by Faculty of Social Sciences

What is plagiarism?

The most common cases of plagiarism involve the use of unreferenced sources. The original text may be presented as a student’s own work either word-for-word or changed in some way.

When producing academic work, all publications, fundamental viewpoints, ideas, quotations, formulae, numerical data and images by other authors must be referenced. There is no need, however, to reference generally accepted views.

Academic fraud also includes using a chat tool or another AI-based application without proper reference, or to an extent not agreed on with the lecturer. A chatbot is not the (co‑)author of the text but rather a tool to compose the text. For more information on citing a chatbot, see the University of Tartu guidelines for using AI chatbots for teaching and studies.

When adding references, you should keep in mind the purpose which the work fulfils, for example whether you wish to convey an idea or argue against someone’s point of view. There are essentially two options: citation (using quotation marks or italics) or referencing (expressing the ideas of the original text in your own words without quotation marks). You should avoid committing unintentional plagiarism, for example by rewording text without references or using too many quotations in your own work.

There are several different styles for adding references, and you should use the style which is most common in your field. It is important to research the relevant requirements set by your field or faculty/institute before writing any academic papers.

What are the consequences of committing academic fraud?

• There is a committee in each faculty or institute (see contacts below) to deal with cases of suspected academic fraud or misconduct.
• A member of the teaching staff who discovers academic fraud shall give a warning to the student in the event of a violation or make a referral to the committee to deal with the case in the event of a more serious violation. The student has the right to submit a letter of explanation within five working days and request that the case be considered by the committee (more info about appealing a decision).
• The committee will notify the student about the proceedings, give them an overview of the facts known to the committee and ask them for an explanation of the case.
• The committee can propose that the student be issued with a warning, a reprimand, or be exmatriculated.

If a student commits academic fraud and receives a reprimand or exmatriculation proceedings are begun, the grade of the relevant course is marked as an F, or a “fail” in the case of a pass/fail evaluation, and in this case there is no right to re-evaluate the grade for this course. In the event of a warning, the member of the teaching staff has the right to fail the student for the course or lower the grade.

In addition to academic fraud, a student can also be exmatriculated for other cases of misconduct (e.g. forging documents, violating generally accepted standards of conduct or intentionally committing a criminal offence). A student who has been exmatriculated for misconduct can apply to be rematriculated once two years have passed since their exmatriculation.

  Academic fraud is regulated by the Study Regulations.

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