Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means ensuring your academic conduct is in line with six key values: "honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility and courage" (International Centre for Academic Integrity, 2021, p. 4). It involves always acknowledging the source of information and not using that information as if it were your own ideas. 

Academic misconduct occurs when one or more of the key values above is compromised. This may be through cheating, plagiarism (see below), unauthorised collaboration, reusing one's own work, fraud, or other forms of academic dishonesty. 

It is important to be fully aware of academic integrity and how to avoid academic misconduct, as sometimes, it can occur unintentionally.

Remember:

• Reference any information you have taken from someone else and used in your assignments, whether you quote or paraphrase the original wording. This avoids plagiarism.
• Occasionally, you may need to re-use something you have written in a previous assignment (though we recommend, as much as possible, writing each assignment anew). In this case, you must reference your own previous work. 
• Sometimes, your tutor may require you to work on an assignment as a group. In this case, you are authorised to collaborate. Otherwise, you are expected to work on your assignments individually, without collaboration with others, to ensure the work is your own ideas and research.
• Do not copy another student's work.
• Do not have someone else write your assignment for you.
• Do not write an assignment for someone else.
• Do not leave your work available for someone else to copy.
• Do not cheat, e.g. bring notes or any resources or devices with you into an exam (unless expressly permitted).

Plagiarism

When writing an academic assignment, you will often need to gather information from a variety of sources. It is essential that you acknowledge where you got the information from in order to avoid plagiarism.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is when you use someone else's words or ideas in your writing, as if they were your own, and is considered a form of academic theft, whether intentional or unintentional. Unintentional plagiarism can occur when a student might use information from somewhere else and forget to reference it, or not paraphrase it sufficiently.

Plagiarism can result in academic misconduct, which can have serious consequences at NMIT. (See NMIT's Academic Integrity and Academic Misconduct Policy(external link)).

Therefore, it is essential to avoid plagiarism by learning how to reference correctly using a referencing guide.

Remember the two parts to referencing every time you use information from someone else:

• an in-text citation next to the information you have taken, which links to...

• a full reference for the source, included on a references list at the end of your assignment of all sources used.