UK - National Plagiarism Guidelines

"Academics in the United Kingdom have drawn up a national tariff covering penalties for student plagiarism, which could be adopted as a worldwide system for dealing with offenders.

Studies in this area have found high levels of inconsistency in the penalties universities employ to punish students who are found guilty of copying, with wide variations between, and even within, institutions.

Now researchers from the advisory service plagiarismadvice.org have created a points-based system designed to act as a sector-wide “benchmark.” Setting out a range of penalties from informal warnings to expulsion, it allows staff to calculate a score for the seriousness of the offense and use this to select an appropriate penalty."