This Academic Integrity Policy explains how ClinAssess supports Institutions in safeguarding the originality of clinical assessment submissions, and clarifies the respective responsibilities of students, staff, and Institutions.
1. Purpose
Academic integrity is central to clinical training. ClinAssess provides tools to help Institutions identify potential duplication or plagiarism in submitted clinical histories, case logs, and assessments — while leaving all academic judgment and decisions with the Institution.
2. How Originality Detection Works
When a submission is uploaded, ClinAssess may automatically:
- Extract text from the submitted document using optical character recognition (OCR).
- Generate a perceptual hash of the document to detect near-identical files, including scans or images of the same content.
- Compare extracted text against other submissions in the Institution's records using text-similarity techniques (such as Jaccard similarity over shingled text) to flag overlapping content.
3. Similarity Scores Are Indicators, Not Verdicts
A similarity or duplication score is an automated indicator of overlap — it is not proof of academic misconduct. Legitimate similarity can occur, for example, when students describe the same patient case using standard clinical terminology and formats.
4. Institutional Review Process
Where a submission is flagged, it is reviewed by the Institution's lecturers, examiners, or heads of department, who make the final determination. ClinAssess does not make academic or disciplinary decisions; it provides information to support the Institution's own review process.
5. Student Responsibilities
Students are expected to submit their own original clinical work, cite any collaboration or shared resources as required by their Institution, and refrain from any attempt to alter submissions to evade originality checks (see Section 4 of our Acceptable Use Policy).
6. Appeals
Students who believe a similarity flag was raised in error may raise the matter with their Institution through its standard academic appeals process. ClinAssess can, on request from an authorized Institution administrator, provide supporting technical detail about how a similarity score was generated.
7. Continuous Improvement
ClinAssess periodically reviews and improves its originality-detection methods to reduce false positives and improve accuracy, in consultation with participating Institutions.
8. Contact Us
Questions about this policy can be directed to your Institution's ClinAssess administrator or to support@clinassess.graundra.com.