Case Study : Postgraduate Diploma to MSc

Case Study

Decision not to award MSc in Materials Science and Engineering and to award a Postgraduate Diploma overturned. Client awarded MSc.

Case summary

RT Coopers were instructed to investigate the decision not to award an MSc. Having conducted a thorough investigation we found that there was no reason whatsoever for the decision not to award our client an MSc. As there was no option to appeal due to the circumstances of the case RT Coopers wrote on behalf of our client to the university as explained below.

In the first semester of the MSc programme, our client was accused of plagiarism in a number of essays for three different modules. Our client attended an academic integrity meeting before a Panel. The Panel found our client guilty of plagiarism and agreed that our client could be given a written warning, complete the university plagiarism test, be given a zero mark for each essay and a capped mark of 50 percent after submitting and passing four fresh essays (based on new titles for each one). At which point all of the offences of plagiarism would be expunged. New essays were completed and submitted and passed for three modules with no further allegations of plagiarism. Despite this, there was an error in the minutes of the meeting of the Panel as all of the offences ought to have been expunged. They were not and this led to an error on our client’s records still showing that our client was guilty of plagiarism.

Our client was unable to sit an exam due to mitigating circumstances. The mitigating circumstances were accepted. Our client then reapplied to sit the exam and submitted the research project (mitigating circumstances were granted for an extension to sit).

Our client was then informed by the university that in order to achieve an MSc the Board of Examiners had decided that our client had to retake the year (a full-time internal retake) and repeat all of the 4 components including resubmission of the research project as a fresh project (undertaking a presentation, interim report and final report that had already being submitted). The alternative to repeating the year was a PGCert Pass. Our client decided to repeat the year.

Confusion then arose as to whether our client was eligible to re-sit all of the three modules as the special case committee having considered the case was now falsely claiming that our client was only eligible to resit one module as our client had been found guilty of plagiarism in two modules (receiving 0 for two modules totaling 30 credits). The special case committee wrongly decided that as our client was found guilty of plagiarism, our client was unable to achieve an MSc and no longer able to progress on the master’s programme. By this time our client had started the research project with a new supervisor and was getting on well. Our client was informed that a PGCert Pass was all that was available. This was inaccurate. RT Coopers were instructed at this point.

RT Coopers submitted arguments and evidence to prove that our client was entitled to achieve an MSc. A summary of these arguments:

Our client mitigating circumstances were accepted by the university and our client had to resubmit new essays to expunge the offences of plagiarism. Our Client had been given 15 credits (50 marks) for the resubmitted essays.

Therefore, our client successfully expunged the offences of plagiarism.

Our client did not plagiarise any other assignments.

Therefore, on submission of the final research project, the credit would be 60, making a total of 165 credits.

The error in the minutes of the Panel meeting meant that our client did have minimum of 50 marks for each of the resubmitted essays for the modules recorded.