Plagiarism and Student Copyright

Plagiarism in any form is a violation of the UCLA Student Conduct Code. All class assignments are expected to be original work submitted by individual students; or, if directed by the instructor, by students working in a team.

Plagiarism in any form is a violation of the UCLA Student Conduct Code.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use of another person’s work (including words, ideas, designs, or data) without giving appropriate attribution or citation. This includes, but is not limited to, representing, with or without the intent to deceive, part or all of an entire work obtained by purchase or otherwise, as the student’s original work; the omission of or failure to acknowledge the true source of the work; or representing an altered but identifiable work of another person or the student’s own previous work as if it were the student’s original or new work.

— UCLA Student Conduct Code, Section 102.01c: Academic Dishonesty–Plagiarism.

Unless otherwise specified by the faculty member, all submissions—whether in draft or final form—to meet course requirements (including a paper, project, exam, computer program, oral presentation, or other work) must either be the student’s own work or must clearly acknowledge the source.

All class assignments are expected to be original work submitted by individual students or, if directed by the instructor, by students working in a team. Should a student purchase or otherwise acquire a document from a third party (such as TermPaperExample.com) and submit such a document as original work for the class assignment, such action is plagiarism and a violation of the code.

Plagiarism Detection Services

Instructors are permitted to use one or more plagiarism-detection services to assist in confirming that the academic work submitted by a student is original work and has not been duplicated from an existing work.

Instructors may require that all students enrolled in a class submit their work to a plagiarism-detection service designated by the instructor. Failure by a student to submit assigned work is the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor, to the student failing to submit the work for grading.

Instructors are encouraged to indicate at the start of the academic term whether

• a plagiarism-detection service is used in the class for academic assignments
• the service is applied to all students enrolled in the class or only on a spot-check basis

Nonetheless, instructors may decide to use a plagiarism-detection service after the start of the academic term, either on an across-the-board or spot-check basis. The instructor’s discretion in such matters is final and not subject to appeal.

Student Copyright

Students retain full copyright ownership of their academic work (see UCLA Policy 965, Ownership of Creative Work Submitted by Students). However, if the plagiarism-detection service used by the instructor includes a protocol that the vendor retains a copy of the submitted work, such practice is approved by UCLA for the vendor’s sole purpose of comparison with other academic work subsequently submitted by others. The vendor may not use academic work submitted by UCLA students for any other purpose.

Grade Report

The grading process for a student suspected of having engaged in plagiarism or other forms of cheating is described in the The Manual of the Los Angeles Division of the Academic Senate, SR A-306.

The final grade in a class is based on the evaluation of a student’s achievement in the class. If a student is suspected of having engaged in plagiarism or otherwise having cheated, the infraction is reported to the Dean of Students for consideration of disciplinary proceedings. Until such proceedings have been completed, the grade DR (deferred report) is assigned for the class.