Can I challenge academic judgement as part of an academic misconduct appeal?

The University will not consider an academic appeal if you are challenging an academic judgement. An academic judgement is where only the opinion of an academic expert will suffice i.e. a marker.

This includes, but is not limited to, academic judgements on the following:

• The content or learning outcomes associated with programmes, modules and courses that have been approved by the University
• Captured content and live teaching events
• The merits of work submitted by you for assessment
• The research methodology followed by you.

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) Good Practice Framework: Disciplinary Procedures provides further guidance on questions normally involving academic judgement:

• Is the standard of work so out of line with your other work that it suggests cheating?
• Are the ideas copied from someone else’s work?
• Is the plagiarism major or minor?
• Does your working notes support their case that the submitted work is yours?
• Are the ideas you are referring to in such common usage that it is not plagiarism?

Cases involving alleged unauthorised use of artificial intelligence will normally involve academic judgement.

The following list further illustrates the types of academic misconduct where an academic judgement is usually not deemed necessary. This list is not exhaustive:

• Having unauthorised material during an assessment
• Discussing assessment questions and/or answers with others during a timed assessment event when the work is meant to be completed individually
• Submitting a translation that is available verbatim on a translation tool, such as Google Translate, where the assessment is/was to translate a text from own knowledge