Understanding academic misconduct
Academic misconduct can have serious consequences. Understand what academic misconduct is and how you can avoid this.
Academic misconduct includes plagiarism, collusion, contract cheating, and research misconduct. Learn more about these below, or read the academic misconduct procedures to find out about what happens if there's an issue with the academic integrity of your work.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism happens when you intentionally or unintentionally present someone else’s work, such as ideas, words, images, text, or code as your own without proper attribution. Plagiarism is academic misconduct and is treated seriously by the University. Understanding plagiarism supports you in ensuring you are producing work which is accurate and authentic.
There are several different types of plagiarism, which include intentional plagiarism, accidental plagiarism, and self-plagiarism. Read our page on plagiarism for more details.
Find out more about avoiding plagiarism (PDF).
Collusion
Collusion is different from collaboration. Collusion means working with another student on an assignment or exam that you were meant to be working on independently. This includes dishonesty in getting assistance from, or providing dishonest assistance to, another student when working on an individual assignment, as well as allowing another student to copy all or part of your exam, test, or assignment. Collusion is academic misconduct.
Contract cheating
Contract cheating is when you allow another person to write part of or all of an assignment, sit an exam for you, or allow a third party to produce work for submission that is not your own. This can be paid or unpaid assistance. It's acceptable to have someone proofread or give you feedback on an assignment, but writing or extensively editing a piece of work is unacceptable.
It's illegal in New Zealand to advertise or provide contract cheating services. However, numerous websites and services provide contract cheating and essay writing services for a fee. These websites often claim to be ‘plagiarism-free’ and target students who are looking for support. Engaging with these services puts you at risk of blackmail, extortion, or serious charges. If you are caught engaging in contract cheating, you may be suspended from the University. Engaging in contract cheating can have long-term impacts on your degree and your career.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by your studies and considering outsourcing your work, reach out to your lecturer, Student Learning, or the University counselling service to get help. It's far better to achieve a lower mark in your course than to put yourself at risk of extortion, blackmail, or career-damaging consequences.
Note sharing
There are websites that encourage students to upload their notes in exchange for assignment help or study guides. It's important to be aware of the potential copyright and legal implications of using these sites.
If you upload work created by your lecturers or tutors without their permission, you could be in breach of copyright, as that material is their intellectual property.
Uploading your own previously completed assignments could put you at risk of enabling plagiarism, which is a breach of expected academic integrity behaviors that undermines the value of your degree.
These services have been blocked from the University network as they have the potential to be unethical, and a number of these websites may also provide contract cheating services.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
The rules around AI use vary greatly from course to course. Your lecturer should advise you on what the expectations are for each course, and if you are not sure, just ask.
Generally, using artificial intelligence in ways that interfere with your learning is likely to be considered academic misconduct. If you wouldn’t ask another person to do it, you probably shouldn't ask AI to do it. If you're allowed to use AI in your courses, make sure you're aware of what the limits are.
Academic integrity is the responsibility of everyone at the University, and we all need to work together to maintain this.
There is lots of support available to help you succeed. Learn about our Student Services and the different ways they can help.