Recommendations for reviewing policy to manage unacceptable academic practice in higher education

This publication builds on good practice and suggestions relevant to policies for student plagiarism and unacceptable academic practice to distil and provide up-to-date recommendations for reviewing policy in this area. The scope and content of these recommendations was also informed by a review of a range of institutional regulations and guidelines to identify what is typically covered in policies, the kinds of procedures and penalties that are used, and good practice examples in relation to features or aspects of policies

Policy works is organised as follows: first, an overview of previous guidance and research work concerning policy on unacceptable academic practice is given. This section is designed to draw attention to pertinent themes in developing policy. This ‘scene setting’ leads to a series of recommendations that can be used by staff to aid the review and continued development of institutional policy. Each recommendation provides an associated commentary, and is ‘brought to life’ by examples or illustrative cases. Accordingly, good practice is illustrated with excerpts from institutional policies and by ‘case stories’ of how policies and procedures have been developed, reviewed and implemented within particular institutional contexts.