Collusion

There is nothing wrong with collaborating and co-operating with others in your learning. In fact, this is very useful for your study, and you are encouraged to form study groups with your peers, to help each other with your studies, and to share and debate your ideas. This is an extension of the formal tutorial. What you MUST always do, however, is write your own essay yourself, in your own words as far as possible, and whenever you use someone else's words or ideas, you MUST always fully acknowledge this through referencing.

You MUST NOT copy or submit someone else's work without acknowledgement. Collusion refers to a deliberate joint attempt by a student and another person or persons to deceive an assessor that work submitted is solely the student's own work.

This is what one of our academics has to say about the value of collaborative and peer learning:

"When I say we're going to treat you as our peers, in some respects, what I mean is you should use us as resources; you should have conversations with academics and you should ask questions … but you should also understand that a lot of the learning that you do, you do with your peers. It is in being able to ask your peers about what they think about a particular problem. Putting it into your own words in conversation with others who are also struggling to understand something is one of the best ways to be able to learn. So it?s really really important that you don't see learning as a solitary activity …"

A/Prof. Bev Thiele (Division of Arts)