What is collusion?
When completing a piece of work, it's useful to have a generalised discussion with fellow students about the assignment topic. However you may open yourself to allegations of collusion if, for example, you start discussing how to plan and structure the assignment or you share your work with other students.
Similarly, while it's helpful to refer to students' old assignments, your assignment must not contain too many similarities with these, as allegations of collusion or plagiarism may then be brought against you.
Students are expected to protect their own work, and you should not share your work or parts of your work with another student(s) even if you have submitted the work. So, while it might be helpful to share a piece of work with a fellow student, this can cause you both to receive an allegation of collusion, regardless of whether you intended for your work to be used by the other person or not. If one of your classmates needs help in their assessment it is always best to direct them to their Personal Tutor or the Library and Student Centre so they can get the appropriate guidance. Your work is an assessment of your academic learning. Sharing your work with another student can allow that student to gain credit unfairly for your hard work.
See Part 3 Section 10 of our academic regulations for more details on collusion.
Examples of collusion
Please note assessments, unless stated otherwise from your module leader, are to be completed individually. It is an Academic Offence to work with another student or provide them with your assessment, even if you have already submitted the work.
You may be found guilty of collusion if:
- you are given an individual assignment and you complete the work jointly with one or more other students, handing in almost identical assignments
- you lend your assignment to another student(s)
- you are given an individual assignment and you get together with one or more other students to plan your assignment together. This joint preparatory work might include discussing how to structure your assignments, which cases to refer to, and which sources and references to list. Even if you go on to complete your assignment relatively independently after the discussion, the submitted work may still reveal enough similarities to be considered collusion
- you are part of a group assignment and any member of the group shares submitted work with another group. In this instance, all students involved will be reported for breaching the academic misconduct regulations