Investigation into possible plagiarism

Someone I know received a conclusion letter yesterday. It was mentioned that result will be updated in 48 hours.

 

The situation appears to be that (a) a fortnight or so before the exam results thousands of people will be worried about getting an email from IFoA, and (b) if they do, they are put in limbo for a further 6-8 weeks, and (c) their employer is notified of all this. Can anyone point out where on the IFoA website or otherwise this process is explained in a transparent manner.

 

New assessment regulations booklet for April 2021. Relevant passages:

27. Candidates are confirming by submitting the required files that all the material is entirely their own work and they wish this to be taken into account for the relevant assessment. To ensure the integrity of IFoA assessments, Candidates should be aware that all files submitted to the online platform during the assessment period will be eligible for specialist integrity review. This may be carried out either by individuals involved in the marking process including IFOA staff or through the use of electronic plagiarism detection software. This review may take place both during the marking process and after the results have been published, at the discretion of the IFoA.

31. Candidates are allowed the use their own Formulae and Table books during the assessment. Any material (which could include electronic or hard copy Core Reading, tutorial material and supplementary materials including notes that the Candidate has made as part of their studying or sources from the internet) are permitted other than those which include e-templates and any electronic files which contain pre-existing calculations which are prohibited. Candidates are strictly prohibited from using the copy and paste function or re-typing content word-for-word, whether memorised or referenced, from any source or multiple sources, such material may be used for consultation purposes only.

So referencing is not allowed unlike September 2020, again giving the problem of having to rewrite core reading and acted notes in your own words.

 

No memorising either. Soon they'll ban learning the material.

 

This determines who is fit to practice as an actuary... how exactly?!

 

Maybe a stupid question but do you think we are allowed to copy and paste within the word doc itself? For example in practice questions that use the same algebraic terms a lot I will often use copy and paste to save writing out a long formulae in word again. For example, on a question like that in the image below from ActEd CS2 OC I would probably copy and paste the “0.5Zt + 0.1Zt-1 - 0.4Zt-3” multiple times if I were typing out the solution.

edit: I can’t seem up upload it but it was a solution on finding each gamma0/1/2.. using the same time series Xt multiple times

 

I assume this is okay. It is certainly how I approached SP6 last year. Can't guarantee it though, but also how would they know?

 

You'd probably be fine, I don't think you can plagiarise yourself!

 

This plagiarism stuff is no joke and could end up costing someone a life changing amount of money as well as obviously reputational and career harm.

Did you know IFoA changed their disciplinary cost rules in May 2020 to be able to come after people for the entire cost of bringing the disciplinary against them if they lose at the disciplinary tribunal panel stage? See "Guidelines for Disciplinary Tribunal Panels and Appeal Tribunal Panels on the Award of Costs" and compare with previous versions if you don't believe me:
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/uphold.../disciplinary-and-capacity-membership-schemes

There's even a form now asked to be completed by the accused before the disciplinary hearing to specify all their assets. Yes, ALL assets you have: salary, business profits, equity in your home, pension pot... you name it, or otherwise their disciplinary panel will assume you can afford the potential tens of thousands of pounds of debt put against you if you lose at their panel.

 

Disclosure: I'm not a student, or even a member any more, but I was on IFoA Council until the end of September 2020. I decided not to renew my membership at the end of September and hence resigned from Council at the same time. This was because the IFoA had brought a misconduct case against me, which I am currently contesting, about social media posts made in a personal capacity. The last Council meeting I attended was in June 2020 when the issue of plagiarism was not discussed or even raised, perhaps because it only blew up a bit later in the summer.

I'm afraid that almost_there is right in his/her post above.

This is something about which I have written an open letter in the last few days to the Disciplinary Board because it seems to be a massive departure from past practice. While such a change may well have been in the Disciplinary Board's remit, as a member of Council at the time, I would have expected a change like this to be clearly signposted to both Council and members. Ideally Council/members should have been consulted first. Instead, as far as I can tell, this change was slipped in very quietly and only came to light in a couple of disciplinary cases which had Disciplinary Tribunal Panels (DTPs) scheduled for January and early February. Fortunately for the individuals concerned, the IFoA lost the first case (and very unusually the DTP awarded costs against the IFoA). Further, apparently because the second case had significant similarities and hence was also likely to be lost, the IFoA withdrew the second case (and so far has been refusing to pay the individual's costs).

I think the IFoA introducing such a change without consultation or even notification was very wrong and I would have said so in Council.

I should add that I don't think the 2 cases referred to above related to accusations of plagiarism, but the May 2020 policy change quietly introduced by the IFoA (if continued - I think it should be suspended immediately pending consultation with Council and members, and all cases since its introduction reviewed for unfair pressure put on members) will massively increase the risks faced by any member in the event that they face any allegation of misconduct.

In the absence of any clarification so far by the IFoA to the contrary, this *might* particularly apply to anyone accused of plagiarism. That is because in the past, cases of suspected exam cheating/collusion, or of falsely claiming exemptions have often (if found proven) attracted a sanction of being suspended or expelled from membership (for up to 5 years), rather than a reprimand and/or fine. Sanctions of suspension or expulsion can only be imposed by a Disciplinary Tribunal Panel (DTP) as opposed to by an Adjudication Panel.

Under the current rules (unless the IFoA changes this too without notification) in cases which can be completed at the (earlier) Adjudication Panel stage, there is no award costs to either side. If the Panel finds misconduct proven, it invites the respondent (the member accused of misconduct) to accept the sanction it proposes (reprimand/and possibly fine/possibly period of retraining). If the respondent accepts this, then the Determination (the outcome) is published on the IFoA's website for 5 years, and The Actuary magazine (seemingly for ever).

If the respondent does not accept the Adjudication Panel's invitation (as has happened in the past on several occasions, e.g. because the Panel accused the member of a lack of integrity when there had been no evidence of dishonesty, which a DTP fortunately subsequently found not proven), then this is when the risk massively increases under the policy change: the case then starts afresh (but with the IFoA now counting all the costs it has incurred so far) and is sent to a Disciplinary Tribunal Panel. Under the new policy, it seems that a couple of weeks before the DTP is held, the IFoA sends a schedule of costs by registered post letter to the member. This informs them that if they (the member) loses, this total is what it will ask the DTP to order the member to pay. The schedule of costs now includes *all* the costs the IFoA will have incurred, from the start of the investigation of the case to the end of the DTP. In one of the two recent cases the "schedule of IFoA costs" was £52,000. This is about ten times the average amount of costs awarded in previous years, and dwarfs the amount of fines previously imposed.

So, unless the IFoA issues clarification that it won't apply its new policy to students or plagiarism cases, if plagiarism is treated with the same severity as other exam misconduct (cheating/collusion/falsely claiming exemptions), the fact that such cases have in the past been referred to a DTP means that any student accused of plagiarism currently faces this risk. I hope the IFoA moves fast to clarify the situation. I think this would put students under intolerable financial pressure to admit guilt (whether they are guilty or not) in order to keep the costs bill as low as possible. I'm also pretty sure that no student or member was made aware of this when they agreed to join the IFoA, or to renew their membership.

As I said above, I think the Disciplinary Board/the IFoA's introduction of this big change in policy without consultation or even notification is wrong. You can see my open letter to the Disciplinary Board setting out my concerns about this, and also other aspects that have also recently come to light, at https://improveifoa.wordpress.com/2021/02/25/letter-to-disciplinary-board-25-feb-2021-with-concerns/. I have also written to IFoA Council to draw their attention to this (see https://improveifoa.wordpress.com/2021/02/26/email-to-ifoa-council-25-feb-2021/), and I asked in my covering email for this to be included in the papers that Council will discuss at its next full day meeting on 11 March 2021. I hope they do so.

Writing open letters to the Disciplinary Board and Council is not something I did lightly. I had raised several of my concerns with the IFoA before doing that, but received no reply.

I am aware that the fear of being accused of plagiarism has probably been a worry for all students. And that several of you (several hundred??) actually received emails from the IFoA last year accusing you of plagiarism. That must have been worrying enough, especially given the confusion / new rules about what could and couldn't be done with regard to definitions and book questions. I can understand that the IFoA did need to do *something* to try and distinguish between candidates who didn't know the material but just copied it out, and those who really knew the material well. But it seems that, perhaps due to the short period of time available to move the exams online, mistakes were made in the handling of the situation, and as a Council member at the time (albeit unaware of the problems because these were not raised at the June Council meeting), I apologise that the mistakes made.

For students where plagiarism was still suspected after investigation, having your honesty (and hence integrity) being put into question by the IFoA is bad enough. But having to face the additional pressure of huge financial costs - that is plain wrong in my view. And given continuing uncertainty about how to reword answers in such a way that they will be accepted, by an unknown software tool and reviewing process, as "not plagiarised", which is not a skill that I think that should be required for actuarial work, I can understand that any student might be worried about potentially facing an accusation of plagiarism in the April and other exams this year.

These are important matters that affect the value of being a member (what Council refers to as the Member Value Proposition) and all members deserve to have them clarified. I have said previously in Council that the IFoA needs to always remember that members (and prospective members) have alternatives. I will be publishing any responses I get from the Disciplinary Board or Council.

In the meantime, if like me you are concerned about this change in policy, I suggest you contact any Council member or members as you would for any other important matter. If this issue remains unresolved by May (I really hope not), I think that candidates for Council elections this year will need to make clear where they stand on it.

Note also that you do not need to have been accused of plagiarism to be concerned about this change. It affects any member in that the IFoA seems to be interpreting the Actuaries' Code version 3 to have a much wider scope than the previous one - despite making no mention of any widening of scope in the published reasons for reviewing the Code. All it takes is one person to take offence at something a member has said, even outside their work, for this to be treated as a potential breach of the Code. We actuaries are trained to analyse changes in risk and return tradeoffs - the policy change is a massive increase in risk for no extra return. It is also something that it is very difficult to insure against, unless you have only ever said, and will continue during your membership to only ever say, bland things both in your work and outside it.

 

I hope people take the above posts seriously. It would cost many thousands if you wanted to be represented at their panel too.

 

This is also being discussed on reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/ActuaryUK/comments/lvk036/ifoa_disciplinary_costs_guidance_huge_change/.

 

Wow. The IFoA are the lowest of the low in my eyes of late. Everything is worse since I joined originally. Perhaps they should have a look in the mirror at the Integrity principle. An element of omerta to their sins too. It's the biggest scam I got into since Madoff at the very least They are clearly ruining lives and getting away with it since...

 

I too question whether the IFoA's actions are in line with the Actuaries' Code that they expect their members to follow.

I received an acknowledgment from the Disciplinary Board today. I will post a copy on my blog. Nothing heard from IFoA Council as yet - I think they are due to meet next week: on Wednesday 10 March to choose the 2022-2023 President and Thursday 11 March for their quarterly all day meeting.

 

The acknowledgment from the Disciplinary Board is at https://improveifoa.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/acknowledgment-received-from-disciplinary-board/.

 

I received an acknowledgment this morning from the IFoA's General Counsel (on behalf of the IFoA Presidential Team) to my email to the IFoA Council of 26 February. This is at https://improveifoa.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/acknowledgment-from-ifoa-presidential-team/. Note that this acknowledges that my email was passed to the Presidential Team, it does not say that all Council members were sent a copy. It is helpful however that it informs me a) that the Disciplinary Board will meet to consider my letter shortly, and b) that the Presidential Team "values and appreciates my considered input".

My take on this is that the IFoA has realised that some things have gone wrong, and that they need to react, and be seen to do so.
To me, the key thing now is what action(s) the Disciplinary Board takes, and what communications Council/the IFoA issue to members to clarify/rectify the situation.

 

The IFoA Council meets today (to elect the 2022-2023 President) and tomorrow (full day meeting). There is a post on https://www.reddit.com/r/ActuaryUK/comments/m16psq/ifoa_council_meets_tomorrow_to_elect_their/ regarding questions members might want Council members to ask candidates for President in the election today. (Unfortunately Council members may not read that thread. But I suspect a few will).
(NB I added that post yesterday lunchtime, but for some reason, it was only allowed by the r/ActuaryUK moderators earlier today.)

 

Students have reasonably been asking in the latest student consultative forum why exam fees are not reduced now that exams have gone online. Costs such as hiring a room, paying invigilators, postage and printing etc. no longer incurred by IFoA. In response, IFoA are saying these costs are 'offset' with cost of plagiarism software and resources to check for plagiarism... oh my.

 

Oh dear...
Have any figures been provided to back that up?

 

It's hard to believe the costs are same no matter whether online or offline, unless the cost of policing the new plagiarism offence is very, very expensive...