FIIT STU graduates have earned their bachelor's, master´s or doctorate degrees with honor and are proud of it. To study honestly is in our common interest as professors and students of the faculty. Only a school that can graduate without cheating can be proud of its professors and graduates. We have been striving for this for a long time. If someone managed to get some credit or exam with illegal "help", this is an exception. It could happen that despite our efforts to actively uncover possible dishonesty, we did not come up with something. We want to learn from every case we come across and improve our procedures.
Honorable study is our common permanent goal
We also invite our students to help us in this. By working together, we can be much more successful in building the good name - the "brand" - of our institution.
Why is it good to study at a school that does not tolerate depreciation?
The reward for every student will be the good feeling that he is studying at a really respected school and the degree he has obtained has, from this point of view, an unquestionable international value.
Honorable studies are a prerequisite for quality studies
We remind you that for twenty years we have been providing all our bachelor's and master's programs under the regime of accreditation granted by the International Institution for Engineering and Technology (IET, London). In the world of quality universities, the principle is recognized that a student receives recognition (credit, exam, degree) for his original (and not taken over or even written off) performance.
Why does it matter if it is depreciated?
Depreciation while studying is contrary to the academic integrity of every member of the academic community (whether professor or student). Intellectual honesty is the principle that each member of the academic community acknowledges authorship to the originators of ideas, solutions, etc., that they use. By the way, this is the only way he can expect others to respect the originality of his work. Passing off someone else's work as one's own is not only inappropriate, but it shows that the person in question has not learned the relevant subject matter enough to be able to write an assignment or final paper without taking over the results of someone else's work.
Why should you not depreciate?
You came to university to learn to think creatively, not just to reproduce the opinions of others. It is not a mistake to use (ideally critically) the results of the work of others, they just need to be acknowledged (cited). Try not to write off because you are trying to achieve the highest quality results. By writing off already known results, progress in knowledge cannot be achieved.
What happens if depreciation is suspected?
The faculty considers depreciation a serious matter. The faculty actively tries to uncover cases of deprecation both at the level of assignments or exams within individual subjects, as well as at the level of defense of final theses (a.k.a. state exams).
Lecturers of individual subjects formulate the conditions for passing the subject. Among them is, either explicitly or implicitly, the condition that the student submits his own work. In several subjects, we use tools specially developed by us to detect plagiarism in assignments (seminar papers). Such tools do not have complete information about all possible sources, and therefore their output is only an indication of the cases that need to be investigated in more detail from the entire large set. Proven cases of writing off mean, from the point of view of passing the subject, that the student tried to get a credit or an exam not with his own work, but with someone else's work. This is unacceptable because it is unfair to other students who did not write off. Therefore, a student who has written off cannot expect to successfully pass the given subject or state exam.
If it was intentional writing off, it is also a case of violation of faculty rules, which will be submitted to the faculty's disciplinary committee. The disciplinary committee of the faculty is established by law and has equal representation of teachers and students. Proposes disciplinary measures to the dean. In cases of deprecation, he usually suggests conditional expulsion from studies, in repeated cases expulsion from studies.
Does the pursuit of originality mean that the student must not use the work of others?
No way. It is absolutely desirable that the author of a work starts from a (critical) evaluation of the works of others who have dealt with something similar. It just needs to be quoted correctly.
Does every claim in the thesis have to be supported by a citation?
At the beginning of work on an assignment or final thesis, it may seem that this requirement is too extensive. There is no need to cite sources for facts that are generally known. If you're not sure if a fact is common knowledge, find a source and cite it. Ask your teacher in the subject or your thesis supervisor.
Is the thesis original?
Our faculty has been striving for a long time to ensure that only original works can be defended. We tried for it and had established procedures even before the introduction of the so-called of the central register. We welcomed its introduction with embarrassment. On the one hand, the depreciation review was a good first step. On the other hand, informatics is so internationally anchored that without checking the similarity with foreign scientific theses, the results of the comparison with Slovak final theses were incomplete. It should be noted that part of the final theses is prepared in English at our faculty.
How is the originality of the final thesis assessed?
The Act on Higher Education Institutions requires that the higher education institution assess the originality of the thesis before defending it. For this, he established a central register of theses, a service for their evaluation and the obligation of universities to submit them. At our faculty, the supervisor of the final thesis expresses his opinion on the originality of each final thesis based not only on his own experience gained during consultations, but also on the protocol from the central register. For many years, we have had instructions from the vice-dean on how to proceed Statement of the head of work on the CRZP protocol (pdf) (in Slovak).
The experience so far is that the system works. Students are aware that only original, untranscribed final theses can be their ticket to the elite league of experts who are recognized in the world beyond the borders of Slovakia. If someone tries to defraud by writing off, they will usually be caught by the review sieve of the leader or the opponent. Finally, there is a committee with at least one member from another university and one member from practice. Our students defend their projects, which are the results of their own creative work. They would very easily betray themselves in their presentation and defense if they tried to present someone else's work instead of their own.