Cheating, plagiarism and collusion

In everyday speech, cheating means to profit by unlawful means in a certain situation. Plagiarism means to imitate or copy someone else’s work and pass it off - intentionally or unintentionally - as your own. The term collusion is used to design cases where students have cooperated during individual tasks, such as take home exams.

A student who brings notes to a written test or other assessment or hands in a paper, essay or any other written assignment containing sections plagiarised from other texts, is guilty of what the Swedish Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100, ch 10) describes as trying to "deceive during assessment".

The University’s Disciplinary Board decides on disciplinary action against students who are found guilty of cheating. The student will be warned or suspended for a period of up to six months.

Note that the Higher Education Ordinance does not distinguish plagiarism or collusion from cheating. You should also note that an attempt to mislead during assessment is enough for a student to be subject to disciplinary action, as is helping a fellow student to cheat.

Akademisk hederlighet