What is it?
Collusion can be defined as any form of joint effort intended to deceive an assessor as to who was actually responsible for producing the material submitted for the assessment.
A student knowingly, or through negligence sharing their own work with another student, resulting in similar items of work being submitted for assessment is also considered collusion.
Some scenarios include (but are not limited to):
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Making work available to another student, either intentionally or as a result of negligence, that can be presented as another student.
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Representing work produced in collaboration with another person or persons as the work of a single student.
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Persuading another member of the University (student, staff or invigilator) to participate in actions that would breach the academic procedures.
Common causes & How to avoid it
The obvious answer would be ‘do your own piece of work’, however, this does not always happen for a few reasons.
Time management is key to allowing enough time for you to complete all the components of your work without resorting to help from others. If you are having a hard time organising your time, you can check our Time Management guide here.
Seeking clarity in what the assessment entails is perfectly normal. However, some students shy away from doing so to their teachers and ask for help from fellow students who might just send them their work. This can be problematic because, even unintentionally, the two assessments might end very similarly. That is why sharing assessments should never happen, and when seeking help for an assignment you should do so with your tutor or PAT.
When combined, those two factors might increase the chances of collusion even more, especially if you have another student’s work in front of you and you have no time to do your own research on the topic. This will damage both your and the other student’s grade and lead to an Academic Misconduct allegation.