The first things first, what is an academic offence?  

Simply put, the university asks students to follow a set of rules and if they think that you have not followed these rules, they will consider that to be an academic offense.  

The University expects students to act with ‘Academic Integrity’ when submitting work for assessment.  Academic integrity means that you are expected to complete work honestly and to follow the University’s academic conventions (rules, such as how to correctly reference). If there is evidence to suggest you have not followed these rules, you may be considered to have committed an academic offence.   

These are some examples of offenses that the university considers an academic offense. 

• Plagiarism (copying or using other people’s work without proper referencing). 

• Cheating in exams. 

• Purchasing a pre-written essay for assessment. 

• Falsifying data or evidence. 

• Carrying out research without any necessary ethical approval. 

You can find more examples in the academic offences procedures  

How to avoid breaking any of these rules:  

Don’t assume you know the rules! It doesn’t matter if you are an Undergrad, a Master’s student or a PhD student. If you do something wrong, you will be penalised for it.  

The place you studied at previously, may have had different rules and done things a different way, so just make sure you know how things are done at Essex and by your department.  You can still be found to have committed an offence even if you had no intention to.  

• Read your student handbook that you received on arrival.  This should provide information about the expected style of referencing to use.  
• Check out your Moodle pages, there is loads of information available there including an online tutorial to help explain.  
• If in doubt about anything speak to your lecturer or personal tutor before submitting your work.  You can also get help from the Skills for Success service who have information online as well as workshops and one-to-one sessions that can be booked.  
• The University provides extensive guidance on their website on what is an academic offence – please read it!   

https://www.essex.ac.uk/student/exams-and-coursework/avoid-academic-offences. 

This page includes a tutorial that will guide you through some of the rules and is worth a look at  

AI

The use of AI is a massively useful tool that you will all have access to and whilst it can be helpful, at Essex, we want to make sure AI tools are used responsibly and honestly without affecting the integrity of your work.   

Using AI to help you understand a concept or theory may be fine, if you do not copy the AI response into your own work. Remember, information generated by AI may not be accurate so you should always check legitimate academic sources and not rely only on AI generated responses.    

 If you use AI tools, remember to think about things like keeping your data safe, respecting copyrights, and being honest in your academic work. Find out more about the University's policy on using artificial intelligence in your studies.  

It’s also worth noting that each department has different views and expectations on the use of AI, so make sure you are clear on how you can use it and how you absolutely can’t!  

Don’t forget that there is support out there. You don’t have to do it alone!   

Skills for success, the Library and your departments all offer training and advice on this. They do not want to see anyone fail because of an academic offence as its easily avoided!