Library - All my own work - Academic Honesty: Scholarship, principals and practices

Work through each step in the module:

1. What are the principles and practices of good scholarship?
2. What are the rights and responsibilities of students in ensuring the intellectual integrity of their work?
3. What is malpractice?
4. Why do people cheat?
5. Why is it wrong to cheat?
6. What are the consequences of cheating in the HSC?

2.1 Maintaining honesty and integrity

Honesty is key for all students and staff

All HSC candidates, their teachers and others who guide them must comply with our Honesty in Assessment Standard to maintain the integrity of the HSC. You should also read your course syllabuses and related NESA policies, such as those on malpracticeand completion of a course, on our website.

You must be entirely honest when completing all your assessment tasks, exams and submitted works. You will be marked only on the quality and originality of the work you have produced.

Always acknowledge your sources

You must acknowledge any part of your work that was written, created or developed by someone else, in line with the NESA documents for each course. This includes any material from other sources like books, journals, electronic resources and the internet. You don’t need to formally acknowledge material that you learned from your teacher in class

2.2 Understanding malpractice

Cheating of any kind is unacceptable

Behaving dishonestly to gain unfair advantage in assessments is malpractice, or cheating. Any form of malpractice, including plagiarism, is unacceptable, and we treat these allegations very seriously. Detected malpractice will limit your marks and jeopardise your HSC. Serious and deliberate malpractice is corrupt conduct, and we can report it to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Malpractice includes:

• copying part or all of someone else’s work and presenting it as your own
• using material directly from books, journals, CDs or the internet without giving its source
• building on someone else’s ideas without giving their source
• buying, stealing or borrowing someone else’s work and presenting it as your own
• submitting work that someone else, like a parent, coach or subject expert, substantially contributed to
• using someone else’s words, ideas, designs or work in projects and performance tasks without giving their source
• paying someone to write or prepare material
• breaching school exam rules
• cheating in an HSC exam
• using non-approved aids in an assessment task
• giving false reasons for not handing in work by the due date
• helping another student to engage in malpractice.

You might need to prove your work

If you are suspected of malpractice, you will need to show that all unacknowledged work is entirely your own. You might need to:

• prove and explain your work process with diaries, journals, notes, working plans, sketches or progressive drafts that show how your ideas developed
• answer questions about the assessment task, exam or submitted work being investigated to show your knowledge, understanding and skills.