For students - about ethics and plagiarism

The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and The Good Research Practice developed by Estonian research institutions (both 2017) have defined the basic values in the academic world as follows:

freedom to gather ideas, define questions and conduct research;
honesty and reliability in planning, creating and publishing research, which means that data is not fabricated and there is no manipulation of the authorship;
respect and care for colleagues, research participants, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage and the environment;
accountability – the author is responsible for the organisation, management and publication of the research, as well as for its impacts; the author understands that his/her actions and research may have an impact on other people and generations to come;
openness, i.e. transparency as far as the goals, financial sources, outcomes etc. are concerned;
collaboration

Since Tallinn University follows the Good Research Practice, we agree to base our activities related to study, research and creative work on the above-mentioned values.

According to the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity the most common practices of ethical misconduct in research are plagiarism, fabrication and falsification as these practices involve manipulation of (former) research material, which can result in distortion of the research record. As far as plagiarism is concerned, it refers to practices of using other people’s work and ideas without giving proper credit to the original source.

Even though the Estonian Copyright Act provides that ideas are owned by everyone, in the research and cultural world a new idea/concept/theory has great value and their creators therefore deserve to be referred to by name. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2017) defines plagiarism as the fraudulent misuse of work and ideas. Hence making reference to the original source is an essential skill. It can and must be developed and university is the right place for doing it.

Within the context of studies it is important to bear in mind that Tallinn University does not have uniform guidelines on referencing. Academic units have their own guidelines, please find yours on the webpage of your academic unit).

In university, we use Ouriginal as our main tool for detecting plagiarism. However, free online tools are also available for self-monitoring purposes (e.g. plagiarismdetector.net, duplichecker.com and others).

If you wish to test your referencing skills and knowledge, you can do it HERE (test in English, from ENAI webpage)

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For compiling this material, the following sources have been used:

1. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Web. 6.10.2026. https://allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/European-Code-of-Conduct-Revised-Edition-2023.pdf

2. ENAI (European Network for Academic Integrity) (2017-19). Web 6.10.2026. http://www.academicintegrity.eu/wp/