Investigation into possible plagiarism

My employer received a letter with more details to the process and it said less than 3% of people in this sitting were affected. so around 6730 people took this sitting and lest assume that threshold is more than 2% but less than 3% (as if it was less than 2% they would have stated this) this means on a 2%, approx 135 people got letters.

What concerns my employer is the details they have received states that the minor cases have already been allowed for and the major cases are the ones who have received letters. I did initially think that only a software has looked at the results and they have sent letter on that basis as others have thought too. However; it seems this is not the case and before sending the letter it has been seen by IFOA staff, examiners etc.

That is what concerns my employer and the chief actuary who heads my department. He booked a meeting with me today and wanted me to talk through this allegation which I explained and he agreed that it was peculiar situation especially taking points from a examiners report. He did say the FAQ's should definitely have been in the assessment regulation document especially about copying and pasting etc as other people have rightly pointed out and said "referencing" is very subjective. Also said it is naive for the IFOA to assume students will read the FAQ's when the assessment regulations make no reference to this.

Thankfully I have his full support at he said he doesn't believe this will impact job security but I will lose study days over it and will have to pay for my resit which is unfortunate. Although he hoped that they provided letters to those who passed but thought that would probably not be in line with a fair procedure.

I hope this helps provide some clarity to fellow students and I suggest if anyone is speaking to someone senior, show them the extent of what you have been accused of because plagiarism is a very serious accusation and normally reserved for "original thought" work such as assignments/thesis so without context can leave people forming very bias opinions of you. I also hope it helps students knowing that there are more people than would like to admit facing the same situation.

 

That is short although many people are advising to not self implicate when providing evidence as "it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence"

 

I do not think the suggested letter self-implicates at all. Quite the opposite!

 

You are stating your position in light of the vague accusation.

 

I agree. I was talking about the alternative suggestions people mentioned about stating they weren’t clear on the guidance and saying they used notes which had core reading past papers which is also equally valid but the ifoa would find easier to find guilt based on your own statement of improper conduct even though it was unintentional

 

My employer didn't get any message-did it go to Chief Actuaries? We were talking this morning in our team meeting about how many people might have been investigated. Not to take away from anyone under investigation, but est 135 cases out of nearly 6500 exam entries is quite small.

I assumed (clearly wrong) it was more widespread given the IFoA seems to rely on candidates not cheating to invigilate the exams. I get the numbers are estimated but...that seems to be almost too low.

Good luck with your case anyway. At University students always got the chance to explain themselves if they ever got caught on plagiarism through bad referencing.

 

How does the poster above know there were circa 6500 exam entries? Some stats online indicate they have upwards of 15000 student actuaries. 6500 exam entries seems low for that population, and 135 impacted also seems very low given how many people are viewing and responding to this thread.

 

Not sure who they sent it to specifically although it’s difficult to say if a number is too high or low without having a reference to previous years. It should also be noted that early exams which are more formulae based and cp3/cp2 take up a large bulk of the 6000 and I would guess that many of these accusations come from the SP’s and SA and CA1 which make up a smaller proportion of the 6000. Although you are right 135/6000 is small it’s never come up in this forum on this scale so who knows.

 

Downloaded all the reports and added up all then exam sitters

not sure regarding the views on the forum but only around 9/10 people have responded with what seems like legitimate accusations and the views imo are just for gossip to get away from spreadsheet life for most during an otherwise mundane days of zoom calls.

 

It is only the uk students..
As far as I am aware, non of the IAI Indian students were accused of of improper conduct

 

Interesting - I wouldn't have thought there'd be any reason for plagiarism allegations to be limited to UK students

 

I agree. This needs an explanation

 

I got this response about the rules:


“As our inquiries are on-going I can’t provide the exact number of individuals under investigation for plagiarism, however, I can say the number is very small percentage of the candidates sitting the April 2020 exams. We of course appreciate that for those who are currently under investigation it must be a stressful experience, but I must emphasise this is not a widespread issue for candidates.

For the avoidance of doubt: the materials you use are for reference purposes only. You should not copy either by pasting in material or typing it in manually word for word any content into your answer script. You can consider the material and express it in your own words. If you do copy, then this will be regarded as a breach of the Assessment Regulations. For certain questions that are closed answered or more definition based, there will of course be similarities in how students answer these. However, we do not expect students to be writing word-for-word text copied from any book or source material.”

 

I recieved the same.. funny that their correspondents are the same word for word. Lol

 

I don't think so. That's a substantial number of people being persecuted. I wonder if people would like to tell us what they provided to IFoA.

This is ridiculous. Some students will be sitting these exams not for the first time or prior to the move online in their revision will have already committed to memory definitions as per the notes.

 

I hardly think the term persecution is applicable here given what that term connotes.

I studied all 15 exams but not once did I learn material word from word from the notes. I captured the gist of the material and was able to articulate it - sure it would have been very similar to the notes (ie there's only so many ways you can define liability driven investment) but I would be very surprised if students thought a good approach was simply rote learning the entire core reading.

 

It's been a good approach for me so far, 2 exams to go and passed everything first time so far.

 

Congratulations and well done.

 

Indeed to be sure of getting full marks on bookwork question it makes perfect sense to memorise definitions word for word so as to avoid dropping a silly half mark or something that could make difference between pass and fail. Even acted had products to help people memorise. In the past you were not persecuted for writing definition down word for word.

Did you pass them and which ones did you do please?

 

Yes, I've passed them. ST4, 5 and SA7 were my later subjects. What makes you ask?

 

How is IFoA going to prove people didn't jot down what came straight from their own memory?