Article 1 Introductory Provisions

1. This Directive regulates certain concepts and procedures related to the assessment and detection of plagiarism at Charles University (“the University”) in term papers, bachelor, diploma, rigorosum, and dissertation theses, dissertations to qualify for associate professorship, and other theses produced within the framework of other creative activities by students and employees of the University.

2. The University rejects plagiarism in all its forms and avows the principles of academic integrity provided in its Code of Ethics as well as in internationally accepted documents. ¹

Article 2 Fundamental Principles

1. The members of the academic community and other employees of the University must follow in particular the principles of reliability, honesty, respect, and accountability.

2. The members of the academic community and other employees of the University must above all avoid fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism.

Article 3 Plagiarism

1. Plagiarism means presenting the outcomes of other people’s work as one’s own.

2. Plagiarism may take in particular the following forms:

   a.	Presenting ideas, proposals, invention, manuals, or reasoning procedures of another person as one’s own, using them without proper and accurate citation;
   b.	Copying a part of text, tables, charts etc. without proper and accurate citation;
   c.	Rephrasing and using other people’s outputs of work (including translation from a foreign language and from internet sources) without proper and accurate citation;
   d.	Paraphrasing a published work (in any form) without proper and accurate citation of the original source;
   e.	Self-plagiarism, i.e., re-using and presenting again the outputs of one’s own work without inserting substantial new outcomes of one’s own work without distinct and explicit citation (notification);
   f.	Academic ghostwriting, i.e., creating a thesis upon request where the real author of the work is not stated and the author stated is not the real author of the text;
   g.	Failure to comply with licences, copyright, and copyleft protecting publications.

3. The following in particular does not constitute plagiarism:

   a.	Quotation, i.e., a literal copying of a part of another author’s work, providing that the quotation is properly identified and duly cites the original sources;
   b.	Paraphrasing, i.e., expressing the content of a work using other means, e.g., in text using other words, providing that due reference to the original source is given;
   c.	Compilation, i.e., a work created by compiling the ideas of several other original works, providing that due reference to the original source is given (e.g., certain types of textbooks and synthesised works with the objective of providing the user with an overview of the research to date);
   d.	Generally known facts including subject-area specific facts which may be found in a large number of available sources and which are known to a large group of people e.g., geographical or historical data, generally known information or elementary mathematical definitions;
   e.	Presenting the results of other authors in review works with proper citation of the original works;
   f.	Proofreading of works carried out by another person, providing that this fact is stated.

   
   

4. The following in particular does not constitute self-plagiarism:

   a.	A practically identical description of method, experiment, interpretation conception, etc. in publications presenting new outputs obtained using the given previously used and described method (including a citation of the work providing a detailed original description and commentary, if any);
   b.	A summary of one’s own outputs in subsequent publications with substantially new outputs or reinterpretation with proper citation;
   c.	A multiple (or multi-layer) but substantially different publication of outputs designed to optimize their dissemination in the research community, e.g., a conference paper and a letter to the editor and full-scale publication including all details as required in the given research area;
   d.	Working papers, preprints, and works published in repositories of “pre-print versions” of a publisher which are later published as standard research papers;
   e.	Re-published works e.g., in a collection of treatises of an author, if it specifies where it was previously published;
   f.	Translation of one’s own work from one language into another, providing that this fact is explicitly stated in the later work;
   g.	Publishing of identical research outputs in several journals (or using different channels) in various language versions, providing that this fact is explicitly stated in the later publications.

Article 4 Plagiarism Assessment

1. The primary role in assessment of plagiarism is played by the bodies and commissions established for that purpose at the University and the faculties and by the members of academic staff, management staff, and experts from among the non-academic staff of the University.

2. Plagiarism may be assessed using technical means, such as programmes checking similarity of texts,² nevertheless the results of such checks must always be critically evaluated by a responsible employee of the University.

3. Plagiarism assessment must take into consideration the context of such conduct of a member of academic staff or other employee of the University, in particular the following aspects:

   a.	Whether it is a one-off wrongdoing or systematic, methodical, or repeated conduct;
   b.	The level of knowledge and experience of the wrongdoer (e.g., the year of study and the type of study of a student, seniority of a member of academic or research staff);
   c.	Whether the conduct was intentional;
   d.	The specific aspects of the given subject-area e.g., specific conventions for citation of sources).

4. Whether a work was plagiarised or not may be assessed in particular:

   a.	Within the framework of assessment of study of a subject e.g., in assessment of term papers;
   b.	Within the framework of writing reviews and reports on final theses;
   c.	Within the framework of procedure for the granting of associate professorship;
   d.	By the relevant University or faculty bodies (e.g., the ethics commissions);
   e.	In disciplinary proceedings under the Disciplinary Code of the University;
   f.	In a procedure to declare the passing of a state examination or a part thereof or defence of dissertation thesis invalid;
   g.	In a procedure to declare the granting of associate professorship invalid.

Article 5 Duties of Faculties and Other Units

1. Each faculty or higher education institute determines at least one designated person for the issues of plagiarism and notifies the Rector of the University.

2. Faculties take appropriate preventive measures to prevent plagiarism.³

Article 6 Final Provision

This Directive becomes effective on 6 April 2020.

Prof. MUDr. Tomáš Zima, DrSc., MBA

Rector