Advice on appeals.

[bottleofbeer]

Hi, I'm just finishing level 5 and have recently had a piece of work back with a bad grade. The reason for this is "extensive plagiarism". My turnitin score was 25% but 20% was made up of student papers submitted to universities all over the world. We do not see our similarity score on submission (I'm doing joint hons - the other subject does allow this to give us the opportunity to make changes to unintentional matches and resubmit).

I'm absolutely certain I've not plagiarised. Every claim, every quote, everything I've paraphrased is cited and referenced, extensively. I've used 30 references more than is required as a minimum. This "extensive plagiarism" has, I quote "hugely impacted on my grade".

Even where text is highlighted, it's coming from various different sources, and this is apparently where I've copied ad verbatim.

I've appealed the grade, I'm happy to be taken to the academic misconduct panel as two friends who work in higher education and mark uni work for a living found it laughable and told me this person clearly doesn't understand that turnitin is a similarity checker which needs to be looked at in context.

It's a very niche topic with very little information, so I think that matches are to be expected. Two others have been accused, she's had one girl in tears over how horribly she writes (this young girl has been an easy first class student for the last two years and if anything is often commended on her writing skills).

My question is this, would you consider a piece of work with a 25% similarity match (the highest being 2%) and the rest made up of 1 and

Incidentally, the SU advised me that if my work was plagiarised, it should have gone straight to the misconduct panel before being so severely downgraded. It's not a tutor's judgement call to simply lower your grade if plagiarism is detected.

Almost every person marked by this tutor got a grade in the low 50s with an array of reasons why "it would have been first class but...(insert reason of choice)"

I work in a university student complaints team. Does your university have a) a published plagiarism procedure and b) a complaints and appeals procedure? I would be looking to see if the department followed its own procedures in reducing your grade and also what you can do to appeal.

Yes it does. Plagiarism is to be marked zero and sent to the misconduct panel. If found guilty best case is you do the assignment again. Worse is expulsion. She's written my feedback like it's out of the goodness of her heart that she simply didn't mark the extensively plagiarised areas. At one point she calls it "extremely poor academic practice" and if I was to hand in another piece this bad I'd likely fail my degree (personal tutor said just a week earlier that my grade so far are indicative of a first class). But then she specifically says she's not marked the plagiarism.

I'm already appealing but was interested to hear if it sounds like plagiarism? There's a citation pretty much at the end of every sentence, the bibliography runs to three pages of A4.

Could you have over referenced? Ie so whilst you credited the sources, your work was essentially cobbled together from others work?

I've also just found in the university policy on turnitin and plagiarism that all students should be given the opportunity to submit a draft of their work before final submission. This discipline doesn't and never has allowed us to see our similarity scores so essentially, we're submitting work blindly and very possibly inadvertently submitting work that has high matches.

Also, when the score is high due to student submissions to other universities, they should request access to that piece of work to assess the similarity, she clearly hasn't done that either.

I don't think so, the weird thing is my citations are showing as coming from other student's work despite the matches being paraphrased from authoritative sources like journals. If she'd looked at my citation and bibliography, she would have seen that I've taken it from those places iykwim? How could I possibly have access to 20% of work submitted to universities all over the world? It doesn't even make sense!

All comments on the actual piece of work are "excellent!" "Brilliant use of journals!" the last comment is praising how good it is.

I am an academic and sit on these types of panels. We have clear guidance about what has to happen first (before getting to the panel) and then what happens at the panel plus possible outcomes. There is no leeway. One thing we have to do is to document any correspondence with the student about an incident and invite them to discuss with the director of studies. Without seeing your guidance (obv not possible) it's hard to comment.

Can you double check the plagiarism procedures and guidance and then seek a meeting with the director of studies? I would do that to discuss if you feel that procedures have not been followed. You could also speak to your academic student rep if you wanted although I am not so sure this would achieve much.

I would be keen that a student was aware of what the problem is actually so they could address for next time. It's a learning process (assuming there is an issue).

Thanks! I've found uni policy on turnitin. All students should have access to turnitin for draft work before final submission (my other subject has always allowed this, if the score comes back high you can fix any similarity issues and resubmit) this subject doesn't, and never has allowed us to do this. All submissions come back as " you are not allowed to view your similarity report".

This is against uni policy surely?

My guidance is basically that my referencing is so poor it's plagiarism. In three years of turnitin and four of Harvard, I've never, ever been told anything like this.

When I saw the turnitin report (she attached it to show me how bad it was) it was the first time I'd seen it. It's the odd few lines and generic sentences, but they're coming from different places (they're all different colours) so not copied "ad verbatim". I'm that unconcerned about the possibility I did plagiarise that I'd go to a misconduct panel without hesitation.

An old tutor of mine who I've since become friends with looked over it and showed me what real plagiarism looks like and it's not even close to what mine looks like. He basically said "that's not plagiarism, that's the kind of thing you expect to see because there will always be matches".

It sounds like the lecturer is not following university procedures. If she believed the work to be plagiarized she should have followed the procedures for dealing with plagiarism - in the Unis I have worked at these are ray strict and laid out in a lot of detail. If she believed the work did not meet the marking criteria she should have referenced those to justify the low mark.

I would talk to your student union rep in the first instance to see what the process is for disputing a mark on procedural grounds. In all the Unis I know you cannot appeal the mark itself but you can appeal if the marking did not follow the correct process. I think you have a good case of that here. Remain very factual, unemotional and calm about it all. Keep all written correspondence.

Yes, this is what I've been told by the SU rep. I've got ground so to appeal because correct process wasn't followed. She's tried to justify the low mark as my referencing not meeting key criteria. Yet she goes on to specifically call it plagiarism. She's accused two others that I know of.

The policy very clearly states all suspected plagiarism must be referred to the misconduct panel.

She's marked everything except that parts "that are extensively plagiarised" and told another student who queried it and asked about the appeal procedure that if she even attempts to appeal the grade she will personally see to it that she is hauled up to the misconduct panel. Which as far as I'm concerned is a threat.

There isn't any marking criteria on the module guide. It also says that we will have the opportunity to view the similarity report before final submission.

This is what actually happens in this subject when you submit. You can resubmit, presumably if you notice a glaring error or typo after submission but it does not allow you to view the originality report

No marking criteria? Are you in HE in the U.K.? I’ve never heard of a course without marking criteria before, how did it get approved?

If I were you I would follow the appeals procedure to the letter, keeping a written record of all interactions. Do not talk with her directly anymore unless it is required by the appeals procedure.

Your friend was threatened and should consider raising her own concerns with the head of department.

Nope, I've been right through the module guide and yes I'm in the U.K.

It's the bit that says we should use the amazing opportunity to use turnitin to submit a draft to check similarity scores that's got me. We were never given that chance. It just submits with the above message and always has done in this subject. I assumed it was discretionary to the dept but it's clear in uni turnitin policy that all students should have equal opportunity to use it to submit draft work first.

The other girl was apparently also going to the SU on Friday. I assumed the lack of marking criteria was a level five thing. Like, we should know by now. I'm even wondering if they're aware their turnitin is off for drafts and because it's not been brought to their attention, they simply haven't realised.

There obviously is marking criteria but we didn't see it with this module. It's nowhere in any of the module guides where you usually find it.

Any news, @bottleofbeer ?

Not for me personally but strangely everyone's feedback from this module has disappeared.

Absolutely loads of students have complained about various aspects of the module. In fact, the whole of level 5 has been horrible with this subject. Happily I've only got two modules in it next year. Been liaising with the SU with various bits of evidence that she seems to think shows there's been an error in marking protocol xx

The staff have been horrible tbh. The other subject tutors are like a different breed.

This sounds really poor. I am not sure how they got away with it. Everywhere I have worked we’ve had to submit endless paperwork to get a new module approved and we had to tick all the Uni boxes like marking criteria. Something has gone very wrong here. Hope SU can help you.

Do the students need to be able to see the marking criteria? It is on the module guides for the other subject, they're also ticked with the classification you got in each part to show how your overall grade was made up with your feedback. And despite it clearly saying we should use this "amazing" opportunity to use turnitin for a draft before final submission, this definitely did not happen.

This supposed amazing opportunity, is offered as standard in the other subject and as I said, uni policy on turnitin states all students should have equal access to submit a draft as it's a tool for us as well as the tutors.

Anyway, two parts of the marking criteria (which we didn't see) we "hugely affected" by my plagiarism. Presumably referencing and content as she marked it as though it didn't contain any plagiarism. Which she calls extensive. My actual grade was 55.

I work in this area. Fundamentally it is your university’s policies that should guide you. From what you have said they have not followed their own policies and in that case your appeal should be upheld. The situation you have described is not how we would handle suspected plagiarism or turnitin reports in my institution. This must be very stressful

Oh, also, conflicting information has been a real problem. I saw one tutor first who said my in text citations are spot on but there were a few issues in my bibliography which we ironed out (it really was a 'duh' moment because I immediately saw what I'd done wrong, went home and fixed it). Marker is calling the in text citation the problem.

Quotation marks around a direct quote, with citation and page number, and citation with paraphrased work. All in a bibliography 🤷‍♀️

She then praises my presentation, persuasiveness of argument, structure and content. But, you've copied it. Right.

And when I say it's niche, she fully agreed with me. It's a concept devised by one man, there is one official website in the U.K.. there is his own website, a few bits and pieces from the MOJ and a book. Which is 100 pages long. You might get the odd paragraph in other textbooks and a handful of journals on the subject.

So, 20% similarity to other student papers from other unis doesn't even seem surprising. I probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid even if I had seen the originality report. Particularly because the matches are coming from all over the place, you only need to glance at it to see none of it is 'extensive'. I'd have thought she'd use common sense, turnitin is not a plagiarism detector, it's an indicatior that needs to be used in context.

If I were you I would not dispute the plagiarism claim at this stage but I would concentrate on the fact that the marking of your work did not follow the university's process which is the grounds for your appeal.

So firstly, no marking criteria available to students beforehand. Secondly, no opportunity to submit drafts via TurnItIn. Thirdly, accusation of plagiarism did not follow stated plagiarism procedure (find out what it is and refer to it directly).

They need to unscramble this mess and then if they decide to take you through the plagiarism procedure you can dispute that at that time.

She can’t just refuse to mark the plagiarised bits. Either it’s plagiarism and you get 0 grade and disciplined, or it’s not. It sounds like you’ve just referenced poorly? If the matched sections are properly referenced they should be disregarded.

I'll be honest, Harvard isn't my strong point but on this particular piece of work I sat with the referencing guide in front of me and was really diligent about my referencing. It may well have been imperfect but I certainly don't think it was really poor either. I came to uni via access to was well used to referencing and turnitin before I even started. Nor has it ever been mentioned as a particular weakness before.

I think this is the problem, she's not disregarded matches despite them being referenced. She's literally making out like it's purely the goodness of her heart that she didn't put it to the misconduct panel and as I said, when another student in the same boat spoke to her about it, she told her she'd make sure she faced the panel if she appealed the grade. Why? She should have anyway if she detected plagiarism.

The week before I'd seen her to get ideas where to cut the work as I was over the word count. She read it in full and didn't say a word about my referencing.

Booboostwo, that sounds like a great plan, thank you 😊

Although one part did make me laugh. She talked about an error in grammar. Now, I don't use text speak here or the likes of Facebook but I don't bother to correct small errors either, because it's not important.

I do know how to write though. She told me she'd highlighted in my feedback the 'error'. It was a semi colon 😂 Then she told the "horrible writer" to look at a piece of her work and how wonderfully she writes.

Great, well done. Holding second year undergrads to PhD standard now, are we?

Could you have over referenced? Ie so whilst you credited the sources, your work was essentially cobbled together from others work?

Thus is my first thought - or that the 25% that is highlighted by Turnitin is not referenced enough.

Turnitin is a set of algorithms; your lecturer is an expert professional, and is going to use her judgement.