Honesty in Academic Work

As one of the primary aims of university education is to develop the ability to think independently, students must never use the work or ideas of others as their own. Plagiarism, undeclared multiple submissions, cheating or violations of rules in examinations, employing or using services provided by a third party to undertake one’s work,  impersonation fraud in tests and examination, and other acts of academic dishonesty will be disciplined under University regulations.

Disciplinary Action

All cases of academic dishonesty shall be handled by the disciplinary committees concerned and/or the Fitness To Practice (FTP) Committee of the Faculty of Medicine (for MBChB students only) or, where appropriate, the Senate Committee on Student Discipline for possible disciplinary actions in accordance with the following Regulations:

15.1 – 15.2 of General Regulations Governing Full-time Undergraduate Studies;

18.1 – 18.2 of Regulations Governing Undergraduate Medicine Programme;

16.1 – 16.2 of General Regulations Governing Postgraduate Studies;

8.1 – 8.2 of Regulations Governing Associate Students.

In general, for a first offence of academic dishonesty, the penalty will be a minimum of one demerit, a mark of zero for that component of the course or a failure grade for the course concerned, and completion of relevant training in academic honesty (for first offence of plagiarism); for a second or further offence (and a first offence that is serious as decided by the disciplinary committee concerned/the FTP Committee), a minimum penalty of two demerits (of which one will remain in the University’s record permanently and one is reviewable) and a failure grade for the course concerned will be given.  The maximum penalty in serious cases could be termination of studies.

For details of the disciplinary guidelines and procedures, and minimum penalties for different categories of offences, students should read the “CUHK disciplinary guidelines and procedures” in the University’s website at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty.