They need to be protected against the possibility of defective judgement, arbitrariness or bias, against which academics are by no means proof, and which may be critical determinants of a student's grade in units where a significant percentage of marks is reserved for work of this sort. In cases where students are being assessed concurrently as opposed to serially no more than three students' performance should be under assessment, lest accuracy of judgement by the presiding academic suffer from over-divided attention. In 1984 Academic Senate considered a report from the Education Committee that in certain individual cases students had felt they had been misled as to the state of their progress in units and they were unaware of the precise position until the final composite grade was available. Senate also resolved that every piece of work should contain a comment on what the grade or mark meant for that specific item and how it was likely to contribute to the final grade or assessment. Plagiarism The Academic Senate in September 1992 adopted the following definition of plagiarism.
Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one's own.
Encouraging or assisting another person to commit plagiarism is a form of improper collusion and may attract the same penalties which apply to plagiarism. The integrity of learning and scholarship depends on a code of conduct governing good practice and acceptable academic behaviour. One of the most important elements of good practice involves acknowledging carefully the people whose ideas we have used, borrowed, or developed. All students and scholars are bound by these rules because all scholarly work depends in one way or another on the work of others. Therefore, there is nothing wrong in a student using the work of others as a basis for their own work, nor is it evidence of inadequacy on the student s part, provided they do not attempt to pass off someone else's work as their own.