Plagiarism and Cheating Policy
TrainSmart Australia is committed to upholding high standards of integrity and honesty. Plagiarism and cheating in any form is unacceptable and will be acted upon appropriately.
Definition
Plagiarism: To take the ideas or comments of another person and present them as one’s own without providing appropriate acknowledgement. This includes material from any source, staff, students or the internet, published and un-published works.
Cheating: To seek to obtain an unfair advantage in written or practical work required to be submitted or completed for assessment.
Policy
TrainSmart Australia’s staff and students have a shared responsibility to ensure all students gain the necessary understanding to prevent incidents of plagiarism and cheating.
TrainSmart Australia uses a plagiarism detection program, Turnitin, to scan all assessments prior to submission. We also recommend the approved referencing style of APA for all TrainSmart Australia assessments.
The following scale has been adopted across TrainSmart in cases of plagiarism:
| Scale | Submission Action |
| Minor | Student submission stands and progresses to Trainer/Assessor for marking. Faculty Head contacts student and offered support in best practice. |
| Moderate | Student submission stands but Trainer/Assessor informs student that questions/areas of concern are to rewritten and resubmitted. Faculty Head contacts student and offered support in best practice. |
| Major | Student submission rejected by Trainer/Assessor. Trainer/Assessor saves submission locally in RTO Drive as evidence and deletes submission in LearnSmart. Faculty Head contacts student to resubmit assessment. |
If plagiarism is confirmed for a student and it is determined that the action is moderate or major, the faculty Trainer/Assessor may decide to scrutinize the submissions for this student more regularly than outlined above.
Other areas of suspected cheating such as during assessment conditions or assisting a cheating process are very subjective and circumstantial and will be addressed on an individual basis using a process similar to the above.
Any decisions in regards to plagiarism and cheating made by the Faculty Head will be final.
Due to the sensitivity of this issue, TrainSmart Australia will endeavour to decide within five (5) working days of the incident being detected.
Policy Version: 1.8
Reviewed and Updated: May 2024
By: National Training and Compliance Manager
