As an examiner, once you have investigated and documented your suspicions of cheating – and your investigation confirms your suspicions, you must:
If you are an exam supervisor and you suspect that a student has cheated in an on-site examination, you must complete a supervisor’s report (tilsynsnote) in which you describe the circumstances. You must also inform the student (in person) that the case will be reported.
Subsequently, you must report the case to Educational Law and inform the local exam administration team. The exam administration team is responsible for putting the assessment of the exam on hold and notifying the relevant parties (e.g. the course coordinator).
When you report cases of suspected exam cheating, you must always use this template, which has been designed by Educational Law. You add your comments where the text is marked in yellow.
Please be aware that the student will be sent a copy of your report. It is therefore important that you complete the template in a language that the student can read and understand. If the student does not understand Danish, you must complete the template in English.
It is also important that the report is as factual as possible and does not contain comments pertaining to blame, expected disciplinary measures, the student’s academic level or other irrelevant information about the student (such as information about his/her personal life).
If you need to report more than one student for the same instance of suspected collaboration, you can make a joint report on the same template. However, you must state the names and student registration numbers of all the students involved.
Please send your report to ujs@au.dk.
Below you can read more about how to complete the report template. You can also find similar guidance on the template itself.
Please state the name, flow number (if you have it) and student registration number of the student(s) involved in the case. If you only have the student’s exam number or flow number, you can contact the faculty’s exam administration team, who will help you identify the student(s) in question. Please note that, at this point, the student(s) is no longer anonymous.
You must state the name of the course, the type of exam (e.g. oral or written) and whether the student was taking an ordinary exam or a re-examination.
You must provide a factual description of the case, including which type of exam cheating took place.
If you suspect plagiarism, you must document where in the assignment the student has plagiarised and the sources from which he/she has plagiarised. You can do this by attaching different appendices as documentation (see below). Please do not insert a link to Ouriginal in your report, because the student will be sent a copy of your report and does not have access to Ouriginal.
The above also applies in cases of text overlap, for example in cases of suspected collaboration.
As an examiner, you must attach the required documentation when you report suspected exam cheating. The type of documentation required depends on the type of exam cheating you suspect to have taken place.
In cases that involve plagiarism or other types of text overlap, you must attach:
If you do not have access to the Ouriginal report or the source material, you can contact Ouriginal Support at AU Library, who will help you find the relevant material.
When you report other types of exam cheating, the documentation required can vary according to the situation. In many cases, it will not be possible to attach specific documentation to support your suspicion. In cases of suspected collaboration, for example, you could document your suspicion by providing a professional account of why it is unlikely that two students have not collaborated during an exam.
If you have not attached the required documentation to support your suspicion, your report may be returned to you with a request for proper documentation (which will extend the case processing time) or it may end up being dismissed.
This will occur in cases of suspected plagiarism, for example, if you fail to attach the entire exam paper and source text(s) with the relevant sections indicated. In this case, you will be contacted by Educational Law, who will request that you send the required material. If you are unable to send the material, the case will be dismissed.
If the Ouriginal report reveals an overlap between the student’s exam paper and a source text that you cannot obtain (for example, an exam paper from another university), you can attach the Ouriginal report as an appendix.
If you need help finding source material, you can contact the Royal Danish Library/AU Library.
Once you have reported your suspicion to Educational Law, you or a department secretary/studies administration employee must inform the student that the case has been reported and that the assessment of the student’s exam is on hold until the cases is decided.
Many students who have been reported attempt to contact their assessor/supervisor or other employees at the department directly to ask for an explanation or to find out what will happen next.
If you are contacted, it is important to remember that, as an assessor/supervisor/studies administration employee, you are not allowed to give any specific details about possible disciplinary measures or the processing of the case at Educational Law. However, the assessor/supervisor may discuss the content of the report with the student, including why the student has been reported for suspected exam cheating. The person who reported the case is not obliged to discuss the case with the student and may always refer the student to Educational Law instead.
During and after the case consideration process, the student has a number of rights. Find them here.