Our Advice & Support team offers free, confidential and impartial guidance and support at all stages of the Academic Misconduct investigation process
Most cases of academic misconduct are completely unintentional and could easily be prevented by building confidence with academic and study skills. We encourage you to explore the wide range of study skills support which is available to all students at UH.
Study Success Hub: Bringing together all the UH-wide and school-specific academic skills support all in one place.
Library SkillUP: Free online modules to support students to develop their literature searching, reading, writing, evaluating and referencing skills.
Study Skills Support
The following academic skills support services are available at UH:
Assignment Guidance
Writing assignments? Here are a few important things to remember:
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- • It's worth creating a note-taking system to avoid unintentional plagiarism. This system should be able to tell you a) what notes are from which sources and b) whether your notes are direct quotes or general reflections. The system will help you to keep track of your literature sources
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- • When writing about sources, always provide a reference; this is also true for images or statistics. Also take care when writing about sources, making sure that you never copy a source – unless if you are writing a direct quote in which you must highlight this by putting the text within ‘quotation marks’
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- • Make sure that you write your reference list in accordance with your School’s referencing guidelines. Refer to your course handbook for more information
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- • When writing your assignment, you must work alone. Do not share your work with your friends. At times you may want to share your work to help one another, but this can heavily increase the risk of collusion. Collusion (a form of academic misconduct) occurs when students work together to gain an unfair advantage. Proven academic misconduct carries severe consequences
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- • Never purchase an assignment from the internet. If you are experiencing difficulties, and worry that you won’t be able to submit your assignment on time, speak to either the Module Lead or your Programme Tutor. In special circumstances you could request for an extension, or apply for Serious Adverse Circumstances
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Exam Rules
Got exams? Don't forget the rules:
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- • Make sure that you arrive at your exam room no later than 15 minutes before the published start time, or 30 minutes before-hand for the larger halls. There is no entry to the exam room after the published exam time, so don’t be late!
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- • Bring your Student ID, exam number and a copy of your personalised exam timetable with you to all your exams. If you forget to bring your Student ID card, you must come to the exam with either a replacement ID card or temporary ID slip. For details on how to get one of these, search “replacement ID card” on Ask Herts
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- • If you are allowed to use a calculator in your exam, make sure that you bring a University approved calculator – a list of these can be found on StudyNet
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- • No food is allowed in the exams, however you can bring a clear bottle of water (just make sure that the bottle label has been removed).
- Stationery will not be provided for students in exams. Bring your own pens and pencils along to exams in a transparent pencil case
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- • Do not bring any revision notes with you to exams; also make sure that you do not have any writings or drawings on your body (e.g. on the palm of your hand)
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- • Try and leave your mobile phone at home; if you must bring your mobile phone to an exam, remember to turn your mobile phone off and leave it in the container provided. Also check to make sure that no alarms are set for during the exam time
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- • When taking an exam, plan accordingly to make sure that you use your time effectively. When the Invigilator says that time is up, you must stop writing immediately
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- • If you feel unwell during the exam, and feel that you need to leave, tell the invigilator so that they can action the appropriate procedure and tell you what to do next
If you have received a letter of allegation, our team can support you through all steps of the process. We suggest that you get in touch with our team as soon as you can, so that we can guide you through what to expect at each stage. Our Advisers can:
- - Provide information about what to expect from the investigation and (if appropriate) hearing processes.
- - Provide guidance about how to write clear and concise statements.
- - Attend investigation meetings or hearings with students, in a supportive capacity.
- - Provide information about the appeals process.
- - Provide ongoing support through all stages of internal process.
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The University's full procedures relating to academic misconduct investigations can be found here.