It's one thing to find information, and an entirely another to use it.
After completing this section you will:
Here are some quick links to get you started using information ethically:
Using information ethically is an advanced information literacy skill that requires you to:
1. Have developed information literacy skills
2. Be able to find information when you need it
3. Ensure that information is organised so that you can keep track of its origins
4. Strong digital skills will also help you engage with information online.
Developing these skills will give you confidence to find good quality information, be critical about your sources, and use the information you find according to our standards of academic honesty and integrity.
Register for our 'Information Skills' course on Moodle to access additional learning exercises and discussions.
The Academic Skills team here at Essex is called Skills for Success. Follow the above link to find the full list of support Skills for Success offer, including online support, workshops, and more. Stronger writing and digital skills encompass and feed into academic honesty so developing a more rigorous academic practice will help you fill any gaps in your learning and assessment process.
You can find all Skills for Success events on CareerHub. You can either search for specific skills (such as writing skills) or filter the event type to "academic skills" to find and book onto all Skills for Success, Library, and IT training workshops.
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
This is a comprehensive Moodle course covering all aspects of academic honesty and plagiarism that you might need to know about during your studies. It consists of short videos and lessons followed by short reflective tasks and knowledge check quizzes. If you are accused of academic misconduct, your department will usually ask you whether you have completed this course, or they may mandate that you must complete this course as a remedial action.
Skills@Essex – Academic Integrity and Referencing
These are shorter versions of the main Academic Integrity and Plagiarism course, for anyone who just needs a quick introduction or a refresher. The whole Skills@Essex programme is great for dipping in and out of for help with various aspects of your academic work from effective reading and notetaking strategies to maths and stats support at point of need. Developing your wider academic skills can also help you understand academic integrity and avoid committing academic offences through use of good academic practices.
Master's skills programme (MSP) and Master’s preparation programme (MPP)
These are short courses aimed specifically at Master's students. The MSP is aimed at current Master's students who wish to improve their academic skills such as reading, writing, critical thinking, and general study skills, learn more about doing research at Master's level, including writing proposals, getting ethical approval, conducting research with integrity, and using AI in your research, and get familiar with what it's like to be a student at University of Essex by learning more about the University and the surrounding areas. Whereas if you are an undergraduate student thinking about doing a Master's, you may want to think about completing the MPP before you progress to the next level of study.
Academic integrity, authorship and plagiarism
These pages define what academic integrity means in a UK Higher Education context and what we expect from you as students at the University of Essex. The landing page also pulls together some of the resources highlighted in this guide, such as Moodle courses and Referencing guidance.
If you're feeling uncertain about the meaning of plagiarism or academic integrity, remember that you can attend our workshop on "intro to academic integrity and referencing" that talks you through some strategies for avoiding academic offences and introduces our referencing support.
If you're not sure what "academic offence" entails, this section on the exams and coursework page gives a good explanation of what we mean by plagiarism as well as providing definitions of other common academic offences, such as collusion, falsification, and contract cheating. The section also highlights what happens and what to expect if you are accused of academic misconduct, and provides strategies on avoiding academic offences.
You may also want to check out the academic offences procedure (.pdf) for more examples of academic offences and a breakdown of the process for academic misconduct investigations.
If you scroll further up on the page, you can also find policies and advice on assessments and reassessments, extenuating circumstances, late submissions, and appeals.
Artificial intelligence guidance
The University's central artificial intelligence guidance outlines what you are and aren't allowed to use artificial intelligence (AI) for in your academic work, and what would constitute an academic offence whilst using AI. Your department may give you more guidance on AI use, but this central guidance is a great starting point for checking that the way you're using AI is ethical and compliant with University policy.
The key takeaways from this guidance are:
If you wish to learn how to use AI more effectively, you can come along to our "intro to generative AI and prompt engineering" workshop where we talk about writing better prompts and ways to utilise AI ethically, or you can come along to any of our workshops, which all introduce some AI tools and tasks that are created specifically for the academic environment.
Our research students (PGR students) are expected to uphold high academic integrity standards like all our students, but they are also expected to follow good research practice, which entails a little more scrutiny than just avoiding plagiarism. The University's Research and Enterprise Office team have put together some really helpful pages on research integrity that you can check out for more information about what constitutes research misconduct and what to expect if you face a research integrity investigation or accusation.
We've linked some of the checklists, codes of practice and other resources below to help you ensure you follow good research practice and uphold high standards of research integrity.
Webpages:
Download links:
FASER is the platform you use to submit all your coursework and assignments, and any online exams will be conducted through FASER. You will also receive your marks and feedback via FASER, so getting familiar with FASER will likely take some stress and pressure off if you have to submit an assignment close to a deadline or you're asked to take an exam via FASER. You can find lots of information about how FASER works, common issues with submissions, and how to troubleshoot problems on the help and support pages linked below:
FASER is also how your department checks your work for similarity with academic sources, internet sources and other student work by running your work through a software called Turnitin. To learn more about Turnitin, check out the next tab!
Turnitin is a software the University uses to check your for academic work for similarity with academic papers, internet sources, and other student works. It is commonly called a plagiarism detection software, but what it actually does is match your work for similarity with the works in the Turnitin database.
Turnitin will produce a similarity score (percentage of your work that is flagged as similar to other content in the database) and an originality report which highlights the matches between your work and the works in the Turnitin database - this includes everything you've quoted (whether referenced correctly or not), anything that has been copy-pasted into your work, and often your references as well. Not everything that is highlighted in your report is cause for concern - for example references or quotes that you have cited accurately can be safely ignored.
Depending on your department, you may be allowed to run your work through Turnitin (via FASER) and produce one (1) similarity report prior to submitting your final assignment, or you may only see the report once you get your marks back, or in some departments you will never see the similarity score or report unless there is a problem with your work.
We would advise that if you are allowed a pre-submission check:
If you are not allowed a pre-submission check we would suggest you go through your work and check that:
If you're worried about Turnitin, anything that has been highlighted in your report, or how to use your Turnitin report to make your academic work better, you can enrol in the Masters Skills Programme and check out the academic integrity section for an intro video to that talks you through how to make the most of Turnitin.
Except where otherwise noted, this work by University of Essex Library and Cultural Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
