FEBRUARY24_UNIKUM_WEB

Regarding Urkund and why UiA holds a licence for it when STA
advises students not to upload documents to it, Hilding clarified
that ‘Ouriginal is used in three ways at UiA, both through Inspera,
Canvas and UiA-account, and all these methods are reserved for
the examiners and not available for the students.’
Additionally, in response to the suggestion that the Student
Parliament were discussing whether punishments should be
expanded from three levels, at present, to seven in future, to allow
for more nuance within the disciplinary process and what the
status of this was, Hilding explained:
‘UiA does not determine any possible expansion of sanctions
in cheating cases. The Norwegian Parliament is currently in
the process of creating a new Act relating to universities and
university colleges. In the preparatory work for this law, it
has been proposed to expand the possibility for universities
to exclude students in cheating cases for a period of up to
two years. There may be five levels of reactions when the
new law comes into force, ranging from annulment only
to annulment and exclusion for one to four semesters.’
Further information regarding UiA cheating cases dating back to
2015 are available on the UiA website via this QR code:
Jason Duncan is still waiting on the Joint Complaints
Board to make a decision on his case
Asked whether the number of plagiarism cases have increased,
decreased or remained constant over at least the past eight years,
to when Duncan last attended UiA on his international exchange,
Greta Hilding, Director of Academic Affairs, said, via email, that
while the annual report for last year isn’t yet public: ‘[c]urrently,
UiA has 40 expelled students due to cheating. However, the period
of suspension for 18 of these students will end before Christmas,
so from January 2024, the number will be lower.’
While cheating cases were noticeably higher from 2020 to 2022
due to a greater use of home examinations during the coronavirus
pandemic, Hilding pointed out that the interim data from last year
suggests the degree of cheating cases should return to lower levels,
adding: ‘[a]s you can see from the annual reports, UiA‘s Appeals
Committee also processed several cheating cases each year where
students either received no reaction at all or had their exam
annulled without being expelled.
‘It is important to note that these numbers include all forms of
cheating and not just the plagiarism cases, as you specifically
inquired about. This means that students could also have been
expelled for cheating involving non-regulated cooperation
between examination candidates, groups, or with other persons
or having illegal learning aids available during the examination
or other forms of cheating. We do not have available statistics that
solely focus on plagiarism cases.’
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