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 are punishable under University regulations.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of using the work of others (in particular the writing of others), including online resources, as one’s own.

The most obvious and substantial type of plagiarism is copying whole articles, sections, paragraphs or whole sentences from other publications without acknowledgement. This is clearly unacceptable. However, even the use of a few words or paraphrasing (without actually copying any words at all) may constitute plagiarism if the source is not acknowledged. Students sometimes unintentionally plagiarize because they are not aware of the very stringent rules that apply. If the material is taken from a source, there should be proper quotes and acknowledgements. Students should read the detailed guidelines and examples for the acknowledgement of sources in the University’s website at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty.

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 plagiarism, the penalty will be a minimum of one demerit, a mark of zero for that component of the course and completion of relevant training in academic honesty; for a second or further offence of plagiarism (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 actions, students should read the “CUHK disciplinary guidelines and procedures” in the University’s website at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty.