Definition
Plagiarism is the copying, paraphrasing or summarising of work, in any form, without acknowledgement of sources, and presenting this as your own work.
Academic misconduct is not engaging genuinely and honestly in your own learning and assessment. Academic misconduct also includes undertaking unethical research processes.
For students this means:
- If any part of your assessment item is not your own ideas, words or product, you must indicate the source to show that it is not your own work.
- Submitted work must be substantially the result of your own effort and ideas.
- Plagiarism is not restricted to words but includes unacknowledged ideas, thoughts, opinions, conclusions, diagrams, cartoons, art and practical works, photographs, music, graphs, pictures, statistics, tables, computer programs, computer graphics, visual information from the web, advertisements, interview responses, AI generated text/images/art/, app generated translations from a foreign language text, using a friend's mathematics assignment, etc – anything you can copy.
- Changing a few words or images does not mean you do not have to acknowledge the source. Paraphrased material must still be acknowledged.
- Presenting AI generated ideas, text, images as your own is academic misconduct.
- Purchasing/acquiring an assessment item and submitting it as your own is academic misconduct.
For more information see the Academic Integrity: Student Guide 
(604 kb)
For more information see also the Ethical Research Principles and Guidelines (411 KB)
For teachers this means:
Students must be prepared to submit work that is a true reflection of their ability in each subject so that:
- The student can develop an appreciation of their own strengths and weaknesses, can learn ethically, effectively and honestly and grow intellectually
- The integrity of the ACT Senior Secondary Certificate, which is based on continuous assessment, can be maintained
- the safety of participants, students and teachers is maintained.
For more information see the Academic Integrity: Teacher Guide (687 kb)
A range of useful resources can be found on the Academic Integrity Resources Page