The Committee on Applications

After the initial stages both cheating and plagairism follow the same procedure.

Following the School meeting (Plagairism or other Misconduct) or the exam meeting (Cheating) a report will be sent to the Student Cases Team at the University.

You will be asked to prepare a statement.

This could be similar to the statement you made previously, but it should respond to anything raised in the school meeting, particularly if you feel that your statement or response was not listened to.

If you have denied the offence, you may change this for the committee and The University will normally respect this and the penalty should not be worse than if you have admitted at the start.

After this, you will be invited to a hearing. This can take a number of months.

Before the hearing

You may make an opening statement in the hearing. This should be brief and is mopstly an introduction and the opportunity for you to open the hearing. You can prepare this in advance, and send a copy to student cases, and can read this in the hearing, or you can just make a brief verbal statement.

You may take a supporter to the hearing.. This could be a friend, a family member or someone from our team of advisors (please just let us know in advance so that we can check if we have availability). Your supporter cannot speak on your behalf, but can prompt you and offer moral support. You will need to confirm if you are taking a supporter and who this is with Student Cases a few days before your hearing.

In the hearing

Most hearings take place via Teams. You will receive a link via email when it is time for you to join. This may be after the time you were toild as the committee will be discussing your case.

The committee will first introduce the hearing and ask if you would like to give a statement. This will be the written response that you were asked to provide when you were referred to the committee, and it is your decision whether you wish to read this aloud, or you could choose to state a shorter summarised version. After your statement, they will ask any questions they have around your case. These can be difficult to predict but may be around:

• How you completed the assessment and if you did anything differently
• Your understanding of academic integrity and malpractice
• Whether you admit to the allegation and why you may have made mistakes
• If you had any mitigating circumstances and how these affected your reasoned judgement
• Anything else in your defence

The key to your hearing is to be open and honest, and to admit to any mistakes that may have been made, even if these were unintentional.

Mitigating circumstances would be any unexpected personal events that were affecting you at the time of the assessment. If you had mitigating circumstances it would be important to talk about these and any impact they had on you as whilst they cannot justify the offence, they can be considered when determining the penalty.

After the hearing

You will receive the outcome within 10 working days of your hearing date. If you are not happy with the outcome you may appeal.