Disciplinary misconduct

Plagiarism is the most common form of disciplinary misconduct. It means describing another person's thoughts or phrases as if they were your own. This means that plagiarism does not necessarily involve textual similarity. It can also involve structural similarity or similarity of ideas.

The following should normally give rise to a reasonable suspicion of plagiarism:

• Describing/explaining someone else's idea/text in your own words without reference to the source.
• Verbatim copying without quotation marks (with or without reference to the source).
• Writing a text, with or without references, that is too similar to the original to be considered independent.

Self-plagiarism

Own examined work from another context, such as a dissertation or take-home exam, must be treated as a source and referenced. When plagiarising your own examined work, so-called self-plagiarism, the same rules apply as for other plagiarism.

Plagiarism checks via Ouriginal

To detect plagiarism in written reports and essays, Malmö University uses, among other things, the Ouriginal system. Ouriginal works by automatically scanning the written document and checking it against internet sources, course literature, and previous student material. If a document shows similarities with the content of any of the sources, the system flags a possible plagiarism.

The difference between prohibited plagiarism and reliance on sources needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Ouriginal reacts if there are similarities in content. However, it is up to the examining teacher to review the results and assess whether plagiarism is suspected.

The processing time can be several months, as incoming cases are handled in chronological order by the University’s legal counsels and case officers. You as the reported person do not need to contact a case officer for the case to be investigated.

The report, together with attachments, will be sent to you in good time before a decision on the case is made. You can then respond to the report by submitting your statement on the matter. Your statement gives you the opportunity to express your view on what happened and comment on what is stated in the report.

The chair of the Student Disciplinary Board may decide to

• close the case without further action
• issue a warning
• refer the case to the Student Disciplinary Board for review.

If the chair refers the case to the board for review, the final decision is taken at the Student Disciplinary Board’s meeting.

You will receive an invitation to attend the Student Disciplinary Board’s meeting where the decision on your case is to be made. You will have the opportunity to express your view on the suspected misconduct you have been reported for. The invitation to the meeting will be sent to you via email, stating where and when the meeting will take place. Since attendance is voluntary, you must reply to the invitation if you intend to attend the section where your case will be considered.

Present in the meeting of the Student Disciplinary Board will be a student representative, teacher representatives, one of the University’s legal counsels, a case officer, the chair (Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, or specially appointed deputy) and a qualified judge.

Usually, several cases are handled in one meeting, and each case is discussed for about 15 minutes. The meeting lasts about two hours, and you cannot be given an exact time when your case will be discussed.

The decision is announced orally at the meeting. You will then receive the decision, appeal reference and information in writing via email.