Responsibilities of the University and its students
Excellence in teaching and learning. Our responsibilities and yours in ensuring the quality of your learning experience.
A University is a community of people, academics, administrators and students, dedicated to learning, debate and the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge. The University of Kent places value on critical thinking, the advancement of knowledge and the pursuit of truth. All education is about developing learning and enquiry, but as a university we focus upon areas at the boundaries of knowledge and work to refine those methods of reasoning and understanding which help us to push back those boundaries: students and staff do this both together and independently of each other.
At Kent we strive for excellence in everything that we do. We foster staff and students' potential for high achievement and are committed to realising this potential in part through independent research and research informed teaching and learning; we prize and defend the special and intimate relationship between teaching and research in a university.
The relationship between students and the University, particularly in relation to the teaching experience, is mutually dependent. The quality of a university experience is at least as much the outcome of the effort and initiative that you put into the experience as it is of the teaching and facilities provided. Universities provide opportunities, not simply facilities and services, though we always wish these to be of an appropriate and high quality.
University and student responsibilities:
To achieve the maximum benefit from the teaching and learning experience, both students and the University must commit resources and effort. Both students and the University have responsibilities to ensure that the learning experience is the best it can possibly be; the University has responsibilities to you, and you have responsibilities to the University and to yourself.
The University has a responsibility to ensure that your health and safety is the top priority so that you are not injured by its undertakings, either while you are on its premises, or engaged in activities which have been organised by the University. You are expected to co-operate with the University to enable it to discharge that responsibility. You should report any injuries to your supervisor or academic school.
When you move in to University accommodation you are agreeing to the terms and conditions, which are effectively the rules for you and us to adhere to. Further information is also available in the Accommodation Handbook.
Safety is everyone’s concern. The University has a legal responsibility to comply with health and safety law and best practice.
Students are required to support the University in discharging that responsibility. Prominent notices are displayed on college, academic school or laboratory safety notice boards and instructions are given in academic school and/or college handbooks. Please follow the instructions given.
It is a legal requirement that risk assessments are completed for the work that you will be expected to undertake at the University. The assessments should identify the hazards that you could be exposed to and the precautions you must take to protect your health and safety.
It is the responsibility of your supervisor to ensure that these risk assessments have been completed and that you receive sufficient instruction and training. However, please ensure that you make yourself familiar with the instructions and follow the relevant safety procedures. Safety is key, so if in doubt make sure to ask. All student accidents should be reported to supervisors or another member of staff.
The University of Kent has a no smoking policy which prohibits smoking in all University buildings and within a 5m exclusion zone outside of every building unless specified in the policy. The University has adopted this policy in recognition of the need to provide a healthy working environment for staff and students. This policy is not limited to, but complies with, government guidance and legislation
Should a fire occur, smoke and toxic fumes can spread with great speed through buildings. It is vital that you:
The University is required by the Electoral Registration Officer of Canterbury City Council to make a return to the Council by late October of each year of the names of students eligible to vote in the polling wards within which the University is located.
The University makes returns for residents of the following campus accommodation: the colleges; Park Wood; Beverley Farm, and Tyler Court. The Office of the Electoral Registration Officer advises that Hothe Court is canvassed separately. Residents of any other University accommodation or other lodging are not included in the University’s return and students should ensure that they are included in any return made from where they are living.
To be included on the University’s return a student must be fully registered and have their name on the Student Data System as being resident in the colleges, Park Wood or Beverley Farm and must meet the eligibility requirements of the relevant Act.
The University makes every effort to ensure that all eligible students are included in the return. However due to late changes in accommodation and late registration, the return is not always complete. A draft register of electors is published in late November and copies are available in the Library. Students should bear this in mind and satisfy themselves that they are included in the Register. Details of what to do if your name has not been included will be available when the draft register is published.
Plagiarism is a serious offence, which the University wishes actively to identify and prevent. Measures have been put in place to help students to recognise and avoid plagiarism in their own work.
Turnitin
The University makes use of a national plagiarism detection service known as ‘Turnitin’ that allows it to check any piece of work for plagiarism before it is marked. It is therefore necessary for students to provide an electronic copy of some or all of the work which they submit for assessment to be uploaded into the detection facility.
There it will be stored indefinitely in a database and compared against the world wide web and extensive databases of reference material, including work submitted by other students from this and other UK institutions using the service. For the purposes of identifying and preventing plagiarism, the University may therefore share the work you submit for assessment with third parties, including other UK institutions if so requested.
Students may ask for their work and personal data to be removed from the service after it has been checked for plagiarism by contacting Judy Cohen at turnitin-help@kent.ac.uk. You need to follow existing University procedures for removing personal data from the University’s systems (including the VLE and any assignments including Turnitin which exist within Moodle).
For information on plagiarism and the correct way to quote material, students should consult their course tutor and the Academic Integrity guide.
Annex 10 of the Credit Framework: Academic discipline: Procedures contains a definition of plagiarism and explains the process which will follow if plagiarism is suspected in your work. Further advice is available from Kent Students' Union.
The Library provides reference management software to help you to create, store and re-use bibliographical information for use in essays and dissertations.
Storing of personal data
There is a FAQ page on the Academic Integrity site with further information on the storing of personal data.
We will send some of the information we hold about you to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This information forms your HESA record, which does not include your contact details.
Your HESA record will not otherwise be used in any way that affects you personally. For further information about how HESA uses your data, please visit the HESA website.
About six months after you graduate, we will contact you to ask you to fill in the HESA ‘Destinations of Leavers from HE' questionnaire. We will not give your contact details to HESA. You might be included in a sample of leavers who are surveyed again a few years after they graduate. If so, we will pass your contact details to the organisation that has been contracted to carry out that survey. That organisation will use your details only for that purpose, and will then delete them. If you do not want to take part in these surveys, please let us know.
