Academic integrity and misconduct
Academic integrity is essential to conducting research, earning a credible degree, and maintaining trust and reputation. Your work must be your own, with sources properly attributed, and honestly reported. You are expected to demonstrate the highest standards of integrity, honesty, rigour, and accountability in every aspect of your work — including code development, written and oral dissemination, and all forms of communication with supervisors, staff, peers, external partners, and the wider public.
Academic misconduct is taken very seriously and may lead to severe consequences, including failure of the module or termination of your MSc degree programme. An academic misconduct investigation can be initiated at any time, during the IRP or even after graduation, if concerns about the authenticity or integrity of your work come to light. Examples of misconduct include plagiarism, the use of generative AI tools to prepare written reports, outsourcing work to third parties, submitting work completed outside the IRP, and falsifying or manipulating version history.
The IRP-specific rules described here apply in addition to the following university-wide academic integrity and misconduct policies:
You are responsible for understanding and adhering to all of them. A lack of familiarity will not be accepted as a justification in cases of suspected academic misconduct. They are non-negotiable.
In addition to university-wide policies, the following IRP-specific academic integrity rules apply:
Mandatory
The declaration form you must submit before the final report deadline. It covers the prohibition on generative AI in written reports and disclosure of AI use in code and other aspects of the IRP.
Plagiarism rules, citation expectations, and the mandatory Plagiarism Awareness course.
The complete prohibition on using generative AI in written reports (project plan and final report).
Version control expectations and commit frequency requirements.
The full reproducibility requirement.
Meeting attendance expectations and the logbook.md requirement.
Interviews that may be conducted at any stage of the IRP to verify that submitted work is genuinely your own.
While you are encouraged to discuss these with your supervisors to better understand how to adhere to them in your projects, supervisors cannot override, modify, or make exceptions to these rules.