The purpose of this policy is to provide staff and students with information about City Lit’s approach to malpractice and maladministration.
Incidents of malpractice/maladministration can potentially lead to students being disadvantaged, can require the conducting of costly and time-consuming investigations and may cause reputational damage to the College. It is, therefore, desirable to prevent malpractice or maladministration from occurring, whenever possible. Where it is not possible to prevent this, cases of suspected or actual malpractice/maladministration must be dealt with quickly, thoroughly and effectively.
Objectives of the policy
- To identify and minimise the risk of malpractice by staff or students
- To respond to any incident of alleged malpractice promptly and objectively
- To standardise and record any investigation of malpractice to ensure openness and fairness
- To impose appropriate penalties and/or sanctions on students or staff where incidents (or attempted incidents) of malpractice are proven
- To protect the integrity of City Lit and the qualifications if offers.
Definition of malpractice
Malpractice is essentially any activity or practice which deliberately contravenes regulations and compromises the integrity of the internal or external assessment process and/or the validity of certificates. It covers any deliberate actions, neglect, default or other practice that compromises, or could compromise:
- the assessment process
- the integrity of a regulated qualification
- the validity of a result or certificate
- the reputation and credibility of City Lit
- the qualification and/or and awarding bodies.
Examples malpractice by students
This list is not exhaustive and other instances of malpractice may be considered by the College at its discretion:
- plagiarism of any nature
- misuse of AI
- collusion by working collaboratively with other students to produce work that is submitted as individual student work
- copying (including the use of ICT to aid copying)
- deliberate destruction of another’s work
- fabrication of results or evidence
- false declaration of authenticity in relation to the contents of a portfolio or coursework
- impersonation by pretending to be someone else in order to produce the work for another.
Misuse of AI in academic work and/or assessments
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) examples of AI misuse include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Copying or paraphrasing sections of AI-generated content so that the work is no longer [your] own
- Copying or paraphrasing whole responses of AI-generated content
- Using AI to complete parts of the assessment so that the work does not reflect [your] own work, analysis, evaluation or calculations
- Failing to acknowledge use of AI tools when they have been used as a source of information
- Incomplete or poor acknowledgement of AI tools
- Submitting work with intentionally incomplete or misleading references or bibliographies.
AI misuse constitutes malpractice as defined in the JCQ Suspected Malpractice: Policies and Procedures (https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/).
Examples of malpractice by staff
This list is not exhaustive and other instances of malpractice may be considered by the College at its discretion:
- improper assistance to candidates
- inventing or changing marks for internally assessed work (coursework or portfolio evidence) where there is insufficient evidence of the candidates’ achievement to justify the marks given or assessment decisions mad
- failure to keep candidate coursework/portfolios of evidence secure
- fraudulent claims for certificates
- inappropriate retention of certificates
- assisting students in the production of work for assessment, where the support has the potential to influence the outcomes of assessment, for example where the assistance involves College staff producing work for the student
- producing falsified witness statements, for example for evidence the student has not generated
- allowing evidence, which is known by the staff member not to be the student’s own, to be included in a student’s assignment/task/portfolio/coursework
- facilitating and allowing impersonation
- misusing the conditions for special student requirements, for example where students are permitted support, such as an amanuensis, this is permissible up to the point where the support has the potential to influence the outcome of the assessment
- falsifying records/certificates, for example by alteration, substitution, or by fraud
- fraudulent certificate claims, that is claiming for a certificate
Definition of maladministration
Maladministration is essentially any activity or practice which results in non-compliance with administrative regulations and requirements and includes the application of persistent mistakes or poor administration (e.g. within a centre/training provider, inappropriate student records).
Process for reporting an event of malpractice or maladministration
Any case of malpractice or maladministration (suspected or otherwise), will be reported to the relevant awarding body immediately, in accordance with the awarding body’s procedures.
Anybody who identifies or is made aware of suspected or actual cases of malpractice must notify the Exams Office immediately. In the absence of Exams Office staff, the Head of Centre needs to be notified.
For BCS assessments, the Centre Manager will report immediately any case of malpractice or maladministration (suspected or otherwise).
Full policy is available to download below.
If you have any questions about Malpractice or Maladministration, please email the Quality
Manager on Karin.kalfus@citylit.ac.uk.
Approved by Governing Body December 2023