Notices

Calendar

16 December, Wednesday. Last ordinary number of the Reporter in the Michaelmas Term.

19 Decenber, Saturday. Michaelmas Term ends.

5 January, Tuesday. Lent Term begins.

12 January, Tuesday. Full Term begins.

13 January, Wednesday. First ordinary number of the Reporter in the Lent Term.

Election to the Board of Scrutiny in class (c)(i)

4 December 2015

The Vice-Chancellor announces that the following person has been elected to serve as a member of the Board of Scrutiny in class (c)(i) (a person who has been a member of the Regent House for not more than ten years on 1 October 2017) with immediate effect until 30 September 2017:

Dr Stephen Roger Kell, CHR

Details of the poll are as follows:

Number of valid votes cast: 701 (no spoilt papers/invalid votes)

Dr Stephen Roger Kell, CHR	469	Elected
Dr Tariq Masood	232
Total	701

Court of Discipline

The Court of Discipline met on 30 September 2015 to consider a charge brought by the University Advocate on a complaint by the Senior Proctor for a Tripos examination against an undergraduate member of the University. The Court consisted of: Dr D. M. Fox, JN (Chair); Professor C. Barnard, T; Mr A. D. Lemons, HH; Dr A. Winter, CHR; and Dr K. Plaisted-Grant, JN. Dr C. A. East acted as Clerk to the Court, with Ms T. Grant assisting. On the application of the Defendant, the Court consisted of senior members only and sat in camera.

The Defendant was charged with an offence contrary to Regulation 6 of the General Regulations for Discipline, namely that they had used unfair means in essays submitted for assessment as part of a Tripos examination in 2014, specifically that parts of the material submitted as the student’s own work were plagiarized from the work of another author without acknowledgement. The Defendant pleaded guilty. The University Advocate outlined the circumstances of the case and the Defendant’s representative presented the Defendant’s case and addressed the Court in mitigation.

The Court accepted the guilty plea. It did not believe the Defendant had set out deliberately to deceive, but rather this was a case of poor scholarship influenced by personal difficulties experienced by the Defendant at the time. The Court noted that the time lapse between the act of plagiarism being committed and the actions taken to investigate the offence made it difficult to judge the case (although it was still right to bring the prosecution) and agreed that the Defendant should not be worse off than if the case had been brought earlier. The Court determined that reducing the score of the Defendant’s paper to a mark consistent with the examiner’s re-marking of the essays with the plagiarized passages excised was, in the unusual circumstances of the case, an appropriate penalty. It should not be taken as derogating from any more general penalty of reducing marks to zero in cases of unfair means in an examination. The Court noted that the rescoring might result in a re-classification of the Defendant’s Part Ib result. A fine was considered not appropriate and nor was re-submitting the essays after such a delay. The Defendant was ordered to send formal apologies to their College and the Chair of Examiners for their Tripos.