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If you have received notification that your result is deferred pending an ACO investigation, it is as well to remember that a significant percentage of results are withheld initially. There can be many reasons why, so you should not panic unless you know that you have been involved in copying, collusion and serious plagiarism (the Type 2 sort as indicated in the FAQs on our OBU Forum Homepage).
Although you are desperate to know how you did, any university is equally desperate to protect its reputation and standing and cannot risk conferring a degree on any student whose work is open to question. This means that if there has been the slightest hint that the student has infringed the rules or the work they have presented may not be their own then it must be investigated further. All of this takes time as the number of cases at the end of the marking period apparently could run into several hundred. So although it is disappointing and frustrating that you are ‘left in limbo’ pending the outcome of a preliminary investigation, provided you have done your research and analysis yourself and written your work then you should not worry unduly. It may take a month or so but ultimately you should find that the investigation has been satisfactorily completed and your will get your result.
However if you have attempted to cheat and your results are withheld then it is likely that the University is “on the case”.
As the Forum Moderator I have in the past received ‘begging letters’ from students asking for my help and advice, as too late in the day they realise, when they are caught that they should not have cheated. I am usually sympathetic to most student problems but this is one where I am not prepared to go as I have repeatedly warned students that they must do their work themselves. Any underhand method to secure a degree is reprehensible, so my answer now is: “You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out of it!”
For anyone out there who is feeling smug because you think you have been so smart to outwit Turnitin
(a) you may be in for a nasty surprise (there are more ways than just Turnitin that are used by universities to discover plagiarism and collusion) and
(b) how come if you are that smart you couldn’t do the work for yourself in the first place?Please see my article on the Academic Conduct Office (ACO) on our OBU home page for further information.
Trephena – OBU Forum Moderator
Hi Terephena i need your help ma’am. today i received my result and it has been withheld. One of my friends have told me result can also be withheld if the files have different author and modified by names. my files have this issue because i started writing my research report on my office laptop which is not under my name then i used to save those files as draft in my email and continue working on them from home at night from my brother’s laptop which is again unfortunately not under my name. Now i am really really sad and confused.
please tell me if you have ever heard about such cases before? i am pretty certain i can defend any plagiarism claim. but if this is the reason of my withhelding, all my hard work could go in vain..
it is very unfortunate that students have to go through this. From my observation many dissertations which are defferred are later on passed or exonerated from academic misconduct. Personally, this is why I have always chosen primary source researches.
There can be a number of reasons why work is deferred. Turnitin the electronic checking program may have identified identical passages with the work of another student. Sometimes Presentations and spreadsheets are so similar it may arouse suspicion and sometimes primary data shows signs of being fake. All of these or a combination of them can lead to a deferral and you will just have to wait and see the evidence and answer the questions the Academic Conduct Officer asks you.
Deferred work will have been looked at by at least a couple of senior markers who have considered that there seems to be a case to answer. Until you receive further info there is no point speculating
tinaboy -yes it is unfortunate but the sad fact is that some students cheat and copy. How would you feel if you had been working hard, missed sleep and really made lots of personal sacrifices to do your work honestly but someone else either got their disreputable mentor to write the lot fior them, or actually commissioned a writing service to do the whole report – but still walked away with the degree?
I WAS an academic conduct officer and saw first hand lots of disreputable behaviour by both students and mentors. I even had several students stripped of the degree because I could prove the work was so identical it was mostly done by one person (their mentor) who is now banned.
Primary data is also often made up – again I had a mentor in Cameroon blacklisted because he was churning out different reports on totally fictitious companies that students were paying him to write for them.
Don’t you think it is sad that cheating is so prevalent these days that Universities around the world have to spend billions on fraud prevention rather than invest in teaching? These costs are necessary to preserve the integrity of the educational system and their degree programmes. Turnitin and electronic checking programs exist because they are needed otherwise the copying rates and degrees awarded to cheats would be through the roof!
Yes it is unfortunate when innocent students get caught up in the system but better overall for honest students who know that efforts to catch cheats actually can work and the guilty perpetrators are punished
how much time do they take to reply? more than two weeks have already passed and i am here dying from anxiety now. has anyone been contacted by ACO yet?
They will usually contact you within a month of the results with some preliminary details. It can take from a few days to a couple of months for the ACO to reach a decision on the case depending on the severity of the breach and whether the evidence is disputed.
As a former Academic Conduct Officer myself, I wanted to clear up cases as quickly as possible however if a student was arguing in the face of incontrovertible evidence it would prolong the issue.
Hi Gillian, More than a month has passed and no email yet from ACO or OBU. is this normal?
Is this normal? Well yes and no! Unfortunately you are an ongoing victim of the ‘Curse of Period 37’ – which you will recall delayed everything.
Normally you would have been informed of your result in March. During the lull in marking (from then until the end of May) the senior markers who are Academic Conduct Officers would be investigating the referred work such as yours. However now Period 38 marking is taking place, and therefore this will have slowed the process down – as obviously they cannot do both at the same time…. (as no doubt they are having to switch between the two).
However you are quite within your rights to make enquiries and ask when your case will be dealt. You should have at least had an introductory email from your particular academic conduct officer apologising for the day, so in that sense – no it is not normal to have waited a month and received nothing at all.
Hi gillian,
My case is being referred to conduct committee. I used exemplars and my notes for my sls now the ACO is saying its plagiarised. Please advise me how to deal my case with conduct committee?? If i fess up and accept that i use exemplars for my sls will they allow me to resubmit again? Please advice me.
Plagiarism is using other people’s work and passing it off as your own. So yes, fess up immediately. Turnitin will have identified exactly what was copied and where it came from and if another student, they can see exactly who it was. There is nothing worse than a student holding out that they are innocent when there is evidence that they are not. (It happened a lot to me when I was an ACO officer and I would always treat those who admitted what they had done far more favourably than those who played me for the fool and insisted they had done nothing wrong when it was obvious they had copied.
If you explain exactly what happened and admit it now you may avoid a committee hearing and although you may still end up having to pay a penalty fee for your resubmission it would be far less stressful for you than a hearing and possibly being banned completely
It is never a good idea to use samples and exemplars and I warn students time and time again that work should never be shared. Mentors who supply these to students are disreputable – it is lazy and bad practice
I admitted everything and told him exactly what happened because of which my sls is plagiarised. Apologised to him hoping he accepts my apology and let me resubmit even with penalty resubmission fee.
His reply “thank you for your email, i am away for a few days so will respond at the end of the week. However, i can say that your honesty does help.”
Miss Gillian what do you think of this response?
That sounds reasonably favourable. Obviously I can’t predict exactly what they will decide but the fact they wrote ‘However, i can say that your honesty does help.” indicates that they will probably consider you in a better way.
Dear Miss Gillian,
Trust all is well with you.
Kindly note that I have submitted my thesis during period 37 and OBU referred my result to ACO for further investigation.
After that he contacted me and asked few questions where he is having doubt so I explained him as per my best knowledge and judgment. On 12/07/2019 he acknowledged that there is no plagiarism and work is 100 % done by me and he had returned my thesis to Programme Director for result issuance.
But until now I didn’t get any response from Programme Director regarding result.
Appreciate your feedback that now why they are taking that much time to issue the result.
If ACO has cleared me with nice feedback so what do you think how many chances to qualify the project?Your urgent response would be highly appreciated.
Good that you have been cleared -which must be a relief!
Right now in the UK it is the summer holiday season and most of the University is closed for the summer recess so things are a bit slower. However it should not normally take more than 2 weeks to release the the results. So I think a gentle reminder to the ACO is reasonable.
However first have you checked your junk mail as it may have ended up there? (I recall someone contacting me about their ACO decision I had sent months earlier just as I was leaving for the airport which left me in blind panic as initially I assumed I hadn’t finished their case -but fortunately I found the email I had sent them. The email must have arrived in their junk folder and been deleted)!
Dear Gillian,
Thank you for your prompt response.
I have checked my Junk folder there was nothing stuck in that folder.
I sent email to ACO regarding my result status.
Below is the last email which I had received from ACO on 12/07/2019.
“Many thanks for this and for cooperating with my investigation.I have listened to what you have had to say and looked at your work carefully and I am very pleased to be able to confirm that I have decided that your work can be accepted for assessment as your own independent and original work. I have returned your work to the Programme Director and your marks will be added to your record as soon as possible.
Although I realise that this process has been a worrying time for you, I am sure that you appreciate that from time to time such queries need to be raised. We have a responsibility to all our students to maintain the high standards and reputation of the Faculty and the University by making sure that our degrees are awarded entirely on the basis of a student’s own original efforts.”
I have few queries:
1-Still they are reviewing my thesis? I believe they reviewed everything before result and where they found doubt they referred to ACO. Don’t you think so?
2-As per above last email of ACO what you say that how many chances of qualification is there as I need bachelor’s degree on urgent basis. This is the requirement of my employer.
Appreciate your response.
Interesting…
When I was an ACO the work usually had already been assessed and the grade established before being passed to me as a referral for an academic conduct review.
However it is possible that the marker failed yours for bad academic practice which has now been proved not to be the case, and therefore it has to be remarked on its merits.
It will probably go now to a senior marker (moderator) to mark and hopefully will only take a week or so to establish – however as I am no longer involved in this process this is my guess and therefore not necessarily the current process.
Do keep us informed
Hi Gillian,
ACO has Imposed a penalty of zero grade for academic malpractice. Moreover, he said if i am eligible i can resubmit a new RAP on the same topic and same research company or change either.
Now my question is can I re-submit the same RAP with new SLS? As there were no issues identified in my report, references, annexures and presentation. Only with SLS
Or do I have to submit a totally new project?
Waiting for your response.
This really depends on the ACO and what they decide is the fair ‘punishment’ for the offence. You could email them and ask for clarification whilst pointing this out and see what they come back with. However if they say everything has to be redone then that is more or less that.
The only way you can do anything about their decision is do a formal appeal (and as that goes through a formal UCC hearing it would take months) – also the hearing could decide that you have been let off too leniently and could impose a higher penalty, so think carefully about what to do if the ACo insistst that you have to re-write the whole thing.
Hi Gillian,
Hope you are doing well
Today I have received this email from ACO.
‘I believe the Programme Director has been away from the office recently. I can confirm that I have asked for her attention to this matter’.Can you please update that when summer vacations will be end in UK.
Fingers Crossed.
The University shuts down from the end of June until the beginning of September which corresponds with the summer holiday season when just a skeleton of staff are around. Staff take their time off during this time but are limited to just a few weeks but there is no set month they go away.
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Hey everyone, i hope people doing good with their results of submission period 38.
I was very hopeful for a pass and then i received this email saying that my result is withheld with ACO…are their any other students who have got the same reply from obu??
Also plz anyone let me know what i have to do now? i worked very hard for this project and it was my first time. Unfortunately this is my last time too (10 YEAR RULE ).
This was email sent to meYour Research and Analysis Project has been sent to the Academic Conduct Officer (ACO) for further investigation as one of the marking team has raised a concern over the academic practice of your work. For example, this could be because of an absence of referencing in some passages, or because it is thought that verbatim quotations (using the same words as the source) have not been shown as quotations. It could also be because it is suspected that the work is not entirely your own. All submitted projects are now passed through Turnitin.
Sit tight and wait and see. As it says in their email: maybe it is too much copy and paste maybe it is something else…
Seems you had a high Turnitin score. Depending on the topic this may or may not be critical e.g. citing from a Corporate Governance Code could be justified as the wording is like legislation and may need to be precise. Copying from other sources is not acceptable as you should express yourself in your own words to demonstrate understanding.
Yes this situation is stressful but until your case is investigated there is unfortunately not much you can do.
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