Disciplinary Matters

Under the Higher Education Ordinance, the University may invoke disciplinary measures against students:

• who have attempted to deceive during examinations through plagiarism, unauthorised collaboration or use of prohibited aids,
• who disrupt teaching or activities at the university, for example, the University Library
• who subject other students or employees to harassment as defined in Chapter 1, Section 4 § of the Discrimination Act.

In the case of a suspected disciplinary offence, the department concerned will prepare a report for the Vice-Chancellor. Matters submitted to the Vice-Chancellor are then processed by the Legal Officers at the Grants and Innovation Office. When an investigation into the matter has been completed, it is dealt with by the University’s Disciplinary Board, which makes a decision about any measures.

Measures when cheating is suspected - especially at-home exams

See the flowchart for detailed information

Plagiarism

When writing academic texts, you need to pay careful attention to how you cite other people’s work so that you don’t risk committing plagiarism.

Plagiarism occurs when you imitate or copy somebody else’s work and present the material as your own – without indicating the original source or where you retrieved the material.

Plagiarism is serious and is seen as a breach of good academic practice. Suspected cases of plagiarism can be brought to the disciplinary board, and in worst case lead to suspension from your studies.

Web course: Academic integrity

The University of Gothenburg offers a web based course in academic integrity. The course focuses on what academic integrity and plagiarism is and how to avoid plagiarism through correct source reference. The courses are given as modules in the learning platform Canvas and are activated with relevant courses by your teacher.

Searching and citing

Go to the University Library’s webpage ‘Searching and citing’ to learn more about how to avoid plagiarism. The page also gives good advice on how to find literature and information for papers and other assignments.

Searching and citing (University Library’s webpage)

Advising in Academic Language and Writing

Are you thinking about how you can develop your writing and speaking in an academic context? At the Unit for Academic Language (ASK), you can book an advising session, ask a question at drop-in, or practice Swedish grammar in a workshop or a quiz.

The resources are open to all students at the University of Gothenburg and are provided in English and Swedish.

Academic Language and Writing

Measures when cheating is suspected - especially at-home exams

In order to contribute to efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, the University of Gothenburg transitioned from on-campus to distance education for both lessons and exams for the spring 2020 term, and will continue so for much of the autumn term 2020. Given these circumstances, both teachers and students now have a common responsibility to make this situation work while also maintaining high quality lessons and fair and legitimate examination procedures.

Unfortunately, the University has discovered multiple cases of attempted deception (cheating) on several at-home exams.

Due to these circumstances, the University reminds all students that disciplinary measures will be taken against any student who, by use of unauthorized aids or any other means, attempts deception (cheats) on an examination.

• By “these circumstances”, we mean the increase in cases regarding suspected deception since the transition to remote exams that the University is currently handling. Many cases concern students who are suspected of unauthorized cooperation on exams that were to be taken and answered individually.
• "Unauthorized aids" are those aids which, prior to an examination, have not been explicitly stated as allowed.
• "Deception" is when a student intentionally tries to give the examiner a false perception of his or her academic performance.
• “Examination” refers to all occasions where the student's performance is to be assessed, for example through Canvas home exams, digital exams in Disa, or at-home exams via Zoom.
• The disciplinary measures that may be implemented are warnings or up to six months’ suspension.

With at-home exams, plagiarism and unauthorized collaborations are the most common forms of deception.

All texts are processed through Urkund, so both plagiarism and text responses coordinated between students will be detected.