Written by Oscar, 2021 Cohort
The term plagiarism carries a serious offence in the academic world which is the meaning of stealing someone else work and passing it on and trying to represent it as one’s own original work. In the United States, there is a copyright law forbidding any form of plagiarism and bringing about serious consequences, otherwise.
As far as Hong Kong goes, according to my research, I’ve found most of the major universities post different articles on the topic of “Consequences of plagiarism“, “Plagiarism and copyright infringement“ and “Preventing Plagiarism“.
Hong Kong University which is the best of the best in our territory, have named three major consequences. These are educative measures, in which teachers may require students who commit plagiarism to rewrite and resubmit a new piece of work, issue an oral or written warning, and advise the student to get additional guidance on proper academic writing. In the case of academic consequences, where the teacher identifies plagiarism, the work of the student is judged based on academic merit and then prescribed assessment criteria. If plagiarized, the result will lead to a failing grade for the piece. Disciplinarily, reprimanding, fining, suspending, or in the worst-case scenario the student will be discharged from the university pathway.
Now if we were to compare the academic cultures of Hong Kong and Canada, there are very few differences. At Simon Fraser University compared to Hong Kong University, the consequences are almost the same: failure in a course or suspension. From outside of the university, in Hong Kong SAR, there is a Copyright Law, a law to maintain the balance between the rights of copyright owners for adequate payment for the use of their work, the right of society as a whole to have access to ideas and information. In Canada, it is against the rules under Copyright law since 1988. If there is any violation, it will be fined from $100 to $20,000 and may face two years of prison. Students’ academic records will be affected and their career pathway will suffer greatly.
Plagiarism is a serious matter everywhere whether it is a video, image, assignment, project, broadcast, program, etc. we all shouldn’t even try to do it or we would regret it for the rest of our lives.
Website Resources:
Copyright Protection in the Hong Kong SAR