At Unitec we want you to succeed as you.
This means we want to see your ideas and hear your voice in your assessments, not someone else’s. The academic values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage are the basis of integrity in learning and assessment. They are critical to ensuring that your qualification truly reflects your learning attainment.
We want you to be honest and have the courage to put forward your own ideas. This builds trust and creates fairness for everyone in their learning – everyone has an equal chance; no one has an unfair advantage (such as by cheating).
Using someone else’s ideas or words without proper referencing goes against the values of academic integrity.
More seriously, using someone else’s ideas or words can be considered academic misconduct. In some situations we now consider inappropriate use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) tools to write assignment content for you as academic misconduct. Using someone else’s ideas, copying their work, or getting Gen AI to write it for you – without acknowledgement – is referred to as plagiarism. It’s very important that you know what plagiarism is, how the use of AI tools against instructions can be treated as plagiarism, what the special form of plagiarism known as “contract cheating” is, and how to keep yourself safe from all these risks. Let’s get started!
On this page:
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is using other people’s research, work, ideas, or expressions without giving credit to them, or acknowledging them as the source, through proper referencing. Also since 2023, evidence of using Gen AI to write assignments for you against the instruction of a lecturer/tutor, may be seen as a form of plagiarism. This position on Gen AI is a key part of Unitec policy in AC 2.8 Academic Integrity Procedure (page 3, item 2 b v).
How to avoid plagiarism in your assignments
Once you understand what plagiarism is, you can eliminate it by:
- Knowing where your ideas have come from. This means you know which are your own ideas, and if you are using someone else’s idea, where you read or heard it.
- Ensuring that you have referenced these other ideas correctly. If you are using and copying someone else’s idea, you need to reference it appropriately.
- Following your teacher’s advice and instructions about how to declare your use of Gen AI, if it is permitted in your course. This is similar to referencing academic sources: see the section Gen AI and Academic Integrity, below.
Understanding referencing
Referencing is a process you must follow to acknowledge someone else’s ideas in your own work. It shows honesty about how you came up with the material you have submitted. So, it is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure you do not commit plagiarism.
Generally, “referencing” means using quotation marks when you directly copy someone else’s words, and referring to the author’s name and the year their book or article was written, after the quotation.
Each subject uses slightly different referencing systems with specific formats, so check with your lecturer or tutor to understand what referencing style and format you should use in your assignments.
Where you can get help with referencing
You should always talk to your lecturer or tutor first if you need any academic help or have questions. This is especially so you understand what they will allow, or not allow, by way of information sources and technology tools like Gen AI, and how they expect you to reference and declare these to maintain academic integrity.
If you need further help, you can book an appointment with a Learning Advisor or with a Subject Librarian on the Unitec Library website.
Consequences of plagiarism
Unitec takes active steps to identify plagiarism and applies its Student Disciplinary Statute to manage academic integrity breaches.
The consequences of plagiarism depend on your intentions, the learning situation, and the assessment task, but can be:
- a formal warning;
- a reduction in your mark or grade; and
- in some cases, expulsion from your programme of study.
For some students, there may be other lasting consequences of plagiarism. Unitec is often required to attest to the honesty and integrity of its students to third parties (for instance, to the Nursing Council prior to registration as a nurse). If you have a history of cheating (including plagiarism), Unitec may find itself unable to attest that you are ‘of good character.’
Gen AI and Academic Integrity
Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) is part of all our lives. The best-known example of Gen AI in popular use, ChatGPT, is a large language model that produces content imitating human writing. It is helping many people to save time, be more productive and enhance innovation. At Unitec, we know Gen AI is a powerful tool being widely used in the workplace and in education, so we accept its use in a teaching and learning context. However this view is balanced with clear expectations that Gen AI will be used ethically – with integrity - and effectively, to enhance learning in ways that prepare you for the workplace where AI is becoming the new normal.
We emphasise ethical use of AI through transparency, or openness and honesty. First, we expect lecturers to be transparent with you about what Gen AI use is permitted (allowed), and what is prohibited (not allowed) in your assignments – through clear written instructions and carefully planned ways of assessing your work. With students, we expect that you will declare your use of AI in work you submit for assessment, and be open in showing your teacher how you have used AI to help you in your learning.
How to declare your use of Gen AI in assignments
Declare your use of Gen AI
Declare what AI tools you used and how you used them.
At the end of your assignment, after the References List, put another heading “Generative AI Declaration”. Underneath this heading, provide detail on:
- The specific AI tools or technologies you used (including translation, editing or proofreading tools).
- What the AI tools or technologies were used for in the process of completing the assessment.
- The prompts you gave to the AI tools or technologies.
- An explanation of how the output from the AI tools or technologies was used in your work (With acknowledgement to the University of Melbourne’s guidelines “What to include in a declaration”).
Your lecturer will probably also expect you to submit copies of AI responses or other evidence showing how AI was involved as a tool in your learning.
Reference AI content
If you are quoting from an AI response or output, you must reference AI in the References List. Check Unitec Library’s guidelines on how to format a reference to AI, such as how to reference Chat GPT using APA, Chicago or other referencing styles.
As a student you need to be aware that it may be a significant breach of academic integrity to use Gen AI to produce all or part of an assessment and then submit it as your own, original work, without declaring it as described above. Gen AI content that has not been declared can be seen as a type of third-party assistance, like contract cheating (see below), or getting help from a friend or family member to write your assignment. You are at risk of accidentally committing academic misconduct if you submit work created by AI as your own original work. If you are unsure of how you are allowed to use it in your course, carefully check the assessment instructions, or check directly with your teacher.
Contract cheating
Understanding contract cheating
Contract cheating (sometimes called ghost writing) is a type of plagiarism where a student gets someone else to write an assignment which they then submit as their own original work.
It can involve paying money to a third party, but it doesn’t have to. Specifically, it doesn’t matter if:
- You are approached by someone offering to do the work, or you approach someone to ask them;
- You pay for the work to be done, or it is done for no charge; or
- The work is done by a friend, family member, a professional contract cheating company or Generative Artificial Intelligence.
In all cases, if a third party - including a family member, or Gen AI - has done the work for you, it is a serious breach of Unitec’s academic integrity expectations. We consider it as cheating. Most important of all, by using someone else’s ideas or work, or asking an AI to invent it for you, and passing it off as your own, you are also cheating yourself of learning.
If you agree to pay money to a cheating service, you are placing yourself at serious financial and reputational risk, and are also undermining integrity values like fairness and trust, and cheating your own learning.
Instead, be guided by us on how to do the right thing – talk to your lecturer about what is permitted with respect to Gen AI and what is expected by way of acknowledging the ideas of others (such as by referencing, and declaring your use of AI tools). Write your own ideas and seek your lecturer’s feedback before you submit your work, and go for the honest result.
Possible consequences of contract cheating
Contract cheating is a growing and profitable industry involving large sums of money, charged to students like you by people who are not interested in your learning or welfare. They are only interested in profiting from you. One hidden consequence of paying someone to write an assignment for you is that you can be blackmailed after you have paid for and used the cheating service. Students have reported that they have been threatened: if they do not pay further fees to the cheating service, their actions will be made known to their school or university. This is something you cannot afford to risk – either for your financial situation, your reputation, or your chances of graduating.
If an organisation approaches you claiming to be legitimate
It does not matter how you are contacted, or how legitimate the company might seem: contract cheating is still cheating.
We have evidence every year that cheating services are still finding their way into students’ social media pages, and elsewhere. They are known to promote themselves in locations like bus stop shelters and shopping mall toilet cubicles. They email students directly, or message through WeChat and other messaging services, offering to write your assignments for money.
These commercial “assignment help” services may present themselves as friendly, helpful, and supportive – “let us help you – we know you’re busy and stressed…” and you may not initially recognise that they are offering a cheating service.
Don’t let them fool you. These are businesses that thrive by making money out of you and your vulnerability.
What to do if you are approached by a contract cheating company
The best response to an approach from companies or individuals offering contract cheating services is to ignore them. Engaging with them can be damaging to your future.
Under the New Zealand Education and Training Act section 393 (2020) it is an offence to “provide or advertise cheating services”. Companies or individuals convicted of this can face a fine of up to $10,000 for each offence.
Unitec takes contract cheating very seriously and will take active steps to address our concerns with these companies directly, as we find them, including requiring them to cease using any reference to Unitec and reporting the company to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. As a student at Unitec you have an opportunity to help us stop these companies approaching Unitec students by sending copies or screen shots of any communications you receive, or approaches you see, to tepunaako@unitec.ac.nz and we will undertake to address it with the company.
