Preparing a Complaint

What steps must be taken by the reporting person to prepare a disciplinary procedure?

If a lecturer discovers plagiarism, he or she should first fully (!) establish the facts of the case. For this purpose, it is necessary for the lecturer to invite the accused person to a meeting regarding the suspicion of plagiarism and to question them in detail about the facts of the case and the allegation of plagiarism (preferably in the presence of another person as a witness). A written record (minutes) of this meeting should be prepared.

If the lecturer invalidates the work of the accused person, he or she may initiate a disciplinary procedure. For this purpose, the lecturer must compile all necessary documents and enclose them with the report. Sending the Docoloc report alone is not sufficient. The passages identified as plagiarism must be clearly marked in the work of the accused person.

In addition, the comparison materials, i.e. the materials from which the accused person is alleged to have taken the text passages, must be provided in copy form, after the relevant passages have also been clearly marked in those documents.

Only in this way can the University Counsel decide whether to initiate a disciplinary procedure.