'Collusion' is another form of academic misconduct and it is, therefore, treated in the same way as plagiarism. Collusion occurs where there is unauthorised collaboration between students in the preparation of an assignment. It does not refer to authorised group work that is assessed by a single group report, or group presentation.
Often this can occur where students work on a project as a group, but are expected to submit an individual report. It is, therefore, important that Course Co-ordinators explain to students that the work they submit should be prepared independently. Although some similarities may be expected for individual submissions from a group working on a project together, there should be independent thought processes evident in the submissions, substantially different wording, divergences in the ordering of arguments and supporting evidence. Submissions that follow the same argument, in the same order with the same or highly similar wording, for example, should be investigated for possible collusion.