# Transcript

Well, I’ve been with the OU for seven years now so fairly experienced in the way the OU works and on each course you often get together with a group of like-minded people. When I say get together, it’s usually online, possibly with the odd phone call, but mostly online through FirstClass. And a group of us all working on a course and would discuss around essay time various questions. And then I moved on to the next course, some of the people moved on to the further course with me and we continued – I’d say collaborating, but collaborative learning is very useful but it’s a long way from plagiarism. The way I got plagiarised – I suspect – I hope it was accidental because I don’t think the person that did it – I really wouldn’t. This was their very, very last essay at the very end of their degree – so whether it was laziness, whether it was just an error, I don’t know, but on two questions, apparently, the last essay our papers matched very closely.

I got a very pleasant phone call from one of the people who deals with this kind of thing and just being contacted absolutely makes your stomach hit the floor. You feel the hair rise on your back and the absolute terror of thinking that you may have done something wrong is quite unparalleled actually because there you’ve been slogging away for years, heading for a degree – or even on one course, even if it’s your first course – the idea if you’re pretty certain that you haven’t plagiarised. That you might be accused of it is absolutely gutting. And then you start thinking how am I going to prove that I didn’t? Did somebody else copy my work? What were they doing if they copied my work? Because, in all honesty, obviously I’d have to have given them my work for them to copy. The way that it happened with this particular essay was that, heading for the deadline, I was working with a colleague on the same course and they told me there was no way they would get an extension. So when we both hit midnight and I’d sent mine off and I assumed they’d sent theirs off; I then sent them a copy of mine and then found they’d got a week’s extension after all and I guess they just picked a couple of my questions and wrote them in. I mean, more fool me for trusting anyone, but this is somebody I’d worked with over two years. It wasn’t the first course I’d worked on them with and I was just absolutely baffled that they’d do anything that would get either of us in trouble. I can totally understand if they just took an easy option but it’s my fault for giving – for putting temptation in their way I feel, because I know they’re a very able student and they’re the ones who’ve been penalised, not me, because it was my work that they plagiarised. I feel a very strong sense of guilt for it because I let them see my work and, you know, the OU tells you not to do that and I did it. I thought I’d done it beyond the deadline but I still must take some responsibility for this.

The greatest fear of what may happen to you is that you’ve put your whole degree at risk. Fortunately, that isn’t the case in my case. It’s tainted my degree to a certain extent but not – I’m comfortable that I’ve done nothing hideously wrong and my degree will be genuinely earned but– just – it’s really hard to explain how … it’s just I’ve blotted my copy book and I’ve let the University down, I’ve let myself down, I’ve let other students down. It doesn’t feel great.

I would say to other students it’s very tempting sometimes. We’re all under pressure. We’ve all got often very complicated lives. We’re all doing other stuff. We’re trying to earn a living. There are family interruptions. There’s endless things that can interfere with your work. Don’t think you won’t get caught if you plagiarise. I can only imagine that’s what this person thought. That: ‘Oh, it won’t make much difference.’ And sure enough, the plagiarism software caught them out.

Don’t get caught out. What’s the point? You could really – you won’t feel great – believe you me.