Collusion
A realistic Guide to life at UCLan - written by students!
Collusion is very similar to plagiarism. It is still passing someone else’s work off as your own but in the case of collusion it is usually another students work rather than published work.
Basically if your friend copies or re-words an assessment or if two of you divvied up and assessment and both wrote a bit and re-worded the section your friends did to inclued in your essay, its collusion.
It can be tough when a friend is struggling and asks to see your assignment but no matter how much you trust them DON’T LET THEM SEE YOUR ASSESSMENT! Not even if it is only the first draft.
If you are a decent friend you should never ask your friend to let you see their work. There is no harm in discussing how you approached the assessment, the resources you used or how you structured it. Just do not show them your assessment!!!
If you do, it is likely you will be caught. It is likely the lecturer marking them it will pick up on it and at UCLan they use Turnitin, a tool to detect plagiarism. Once it has processed one essay Turnitin will pick up on any other essays that are the same!
The punishment for collusion is the same as plagiarism – you fail, have to re-submit and can only be awarded a maximum of 40% for the re-submission.
Another thing to be aware of is that students are expected to take reasonable steps to protect your work. So if you leave your pen drive on a desk in the library while you pop to get some books and someone steals it and copies one of your assessments, you could be accused of collusion as leaving a pen drive lying around unattended is not taking reasonable steps to safe guard your work. This is worst case scenario, the university are not evil, if your work was stolen they may not fail you and make your re-submit. They could only award you with 40%
If a friend asks to read your assessment, say no! If they are struggling, you could talk to them about how you approached the assignment, discuss the sources you used and suggest they go to WISER or arrange to see the module tutor for help.
Take a look at this example of collusion