Cheating and plagiarism at NMBU

• Cheating involves obtaining an unfair advantage through illegitimate means. NMBU takes cheating and plagiarism extremely seriously, as these actions constitute a breach of trust between the student, their peers, and the institution.
• Cheating, whether it occurs in in-class exams, take-home assignments, mandatory submissions, or any other coursework, is strictly prohibited and will be penalized.
• Misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, may be considered cheating or plagiarism and can result in severe academic penalties.
• NMBU defines cheating as "any act intended to provide a student with an unfair academic advantage." All forms of plagiarism are considered an unfair advantage.
• Plagiarism involves presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, whether in part or in whole. This includes using information from other sources without proper citation. The library provides resources on correct citation styles and referencing techniques.
• Self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits previously written work as new, without proper citation. To avoid self-plagiarism, use different sources and rephrase your ideas. If you must reuse portions of your previous work, ensure that you cite the original source.

• Examples of cheating and plagiarism

  Cheating is any act that aims to give the student an unjustified study result or an unjustified advantage when evaluating academic performance.

  • Use of mobile phones or other electronic devices during your exam
  • Using or having available aids that are not permitted. Examples of this are notes and sheets with syllabus-related information, own notes etc.
  • Not providing sources or providing fictitious sources
  • Answers/hand-ins copied from the Internet and completely or partially submitted as one's own work
  • Answers/hand-ins that have completely or partially been used by another person at an earlier examination submitted as one's own work
  • Answers/hand-ins that have completely or partially been prepared by another person submitted as one's own work
  • Submitted practical or artistic work that has been produced by someone else than the student submitted as one's own work
  • Violation of the rules on cooperation
  • Reproduction/quotations from textbooks, other scientific books, other's exams/papers, texts published on the Internet, etc. that are presented without any source reference and without clearly indicating that the text in question is a reproduction/quotation.
  • To reuse all or part of one's own previously graded exam (self-plagiarism), without clearly indicating that it is a reproduction/quotation, unless such use is agreed upon with the institution.
  • Unjustified use of artificial intelligence AI in your answer.
• How cheating and plagiarism can be detected

  • By the examination supervisor during or in connection with the examination.
  • Random sampling performed by employees in the Department of Academic Affairs during the examination
  • By the examiner when assessing an exam or assignment
  • Use of Ouriginal - a text recognition program that checks the student's electronically submitted assignment against other students' assignments and texts from the internet.
  • Suspicion of use of unjustified use of AI.
• Consequences of cheating and plagiarism

  The NMBUs Board of Student Affairs decides on the sanctions to be imposed for cheating or plagiarism. The consequences that cheating can lead to exclusion from NMBU for up to a year, as well as losing the right to sit for exams at other universities and colleges in the same period. Your exam, paper or submission will be annulled.

  Remember that the right to annul an exam, assignment or submission does not expire cf. the Norwegian Act Relating to Universities and University Colleges section 4-7 no. 4. This means that if cheating or plagiarism is suspected, the case can be taken up even if you have left the university. If there is a decision on cancellation, the diploma or transcript must be returned to NMBU

  • Although language models such as ChatGPT may not be mentioned explicitly in the guidelines for the exam, it is very clear that the answers you give must be your own work.
  • If you copy text from other sources, get others to write the text for you, or you use e.g. Chat GPT or other AI, this is considered attempted cheating. The result can be cancellation of the exam/course and expulsion from the university.
  • Using a language processing tool to generate text can currently be defined as a way of gaining an "unjustified advantage" when evaluating academic performance. You must use an independent software (with login) that is not included in NMBU's list of approved digital tools.
• Processing cases regarding cheating in the NMBU's Board of Student Affairs

  NMBU's definition of cheating egen definisjon har fungert siden 2012:

  “Cheating is any act aimed at giving the student an unwarranted study result or an unjustified advantage in evaluating the student achievement.”

  The concept of cheating applies to the act itself, and only the students' creativity sets limits to what the act can entail, as long as it can lead to an unjustified result or advantage. Nevertheless, the definition is accompanied by a number of examples as practical guidance for the readers, including reuse of own exam answers, but not so-called "self-plagiarism".

  Cheating can be met with sanctions. We are talking about objective criteria for reactions (the action has been done) and subjective criteria (the degree of culpability: negligence, gross negligence or intent). The Board of Student Affairs decides cases about sanctions.

  Cheating in an exam or assignment can lead to the annulment of the exam regardless of the degree of guilt. This is related to the fact that the exam result must reflect the student's own performance, and authenticity cannot be guaranteed by cheating in the assignment. Annulment also has a certain element of penalty. 

  The boundary between negligence and gross negligence is also the boundary for whether the student can be banned from the course for a period. This limit is assessed according to legal criteria and tradition, and here we are talking about purely sanctioning considerations.

  In all cases concerning cheating, the parties are summoned to a meeting with the Board of Student Affairs . The meetings have a formal feel, which will ensure that the student speaks up and gets to explain himself about the incident and give opinions for use in the legal assessment. It is important that the student attends, as information about which the student has the best knowledge may not otherwise come to light, and the outcome of the case may be affected by a lack of contribution to clarification.

  All students who are suspected of cheating are offered legal assistance, which is paid for by the university. The student has a free choice of lawyer within the legal circle, but the administration can assist with a referral if necessary. The Board of Student Affairs strongly encourages everyone who is entitled to a lawyer to make use of the offer. The Board of Student Affairs considers legal assistance in the cases to be important to ensure that the legal assessments of the student's circumstances are handled professionally, and in many cases also as support for the student during the meeting.

  The Board of Student Affairs believes that the thorough and serious processing of the cases contributes to correct and quick decisions in cases of cheating for the benefit of all concerned.