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Force the OU to release student personal information/data regarding possible academic misconduct within five months of it being generated.

Submitted 1 week ago by Anonymous

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On 20 Jul 2026, I was notified by email that my Module Team had referred my End-of-Module Assignment (EMA) for review of academic conduct by an Academic Conduct Officer. Some weeks later, I emailed data-protection@open.ac.uk to submit a request for the University to provide me with a copy of my personal data, namely the screening report for my EMA. (The OU uses screening software (Copycatch and Turnitin) and marker checks to identify possible academic misconduct.) I received the following response from the Information Rights team: "We have located and identified the [screening] report but unfortunately, we cannot currently provide it to you as your results have not yet been released." The response then provided the following useful information: "The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) exempts certain areas of personal data from provision under a subject access request [SAR]. Schedule 2, Part 4, Paragraph 25(2)(3) of the DPA 2018 exempts Information which is processed for “the purposes of determining the results of an exam and in consequence of the determination of the results of an exam” for a set period of time before the results are released. This exemption includes Turnitin reports and any other correspondence and documents regarding the exam, marking and determining the results of the exam and the investigation into potential plagiarism. "We do routinely release (within subject access requests) Turnitin reports to students after their exam results have been announced. The exemption set out above will no longer be applicable after 5 months of submitting your subject access request or after 40 days of the exam results being communicated to you (if this is earlier)." It is well-documented that the OU's reviews regularly exceed its six week aim, leaving students waiting for many months with no way to know how long it might take. The above SAR process provides a means for students to obtain the reports pertaining to their academic misconduct reviews within five months (or one month of results being released, where applicable). Also see https://help.open.ac.uk/requesting-access-data. Open SU should encourage students who are notified of an academic conduct review to submit a SAR immediately, and publish details of this SAR process on https://www.oustudents.com/support-and-advice/student-advice/academic-misconduct/. Additionally, Open OU should inform the OU that this SAR process requires them, where requested, to provide the information within five months - hopefully this will encourage the OU to dedicate the necessary resources to resolving this issue in a more timely manner. History of this issue at Open SU, as far as I can tell: Issue posted by student after an assignment was flagged on 10 Feb 2025: https://www.oustudents.com/your-voice/issues/passed/?idea=97#idea97. Item discussed at Feb 2026 SLT meeting. Minutes and actions (items 6.1-6.4): https://www.oustudents.com/assets/site_resources/02.26.M%20SLT%20meeting%20minutes.pdf. Item also discussed at Apr 2026 SLT meeting. Minutes (item 1.1, no actions): https://www.oustudents.com/assets/site_resources/04.26Student%20Leadership%20Team%20(SLT)%20Meeting%20Minutes.pdf: "there are some outstanding actions from the last meeting [...] including some regarding academic misconduct and wait times. [Within the OU] this is a large piece of work likely to be continuing for some time." This appears to be the latest documented update on this issue. "A formal meeting of the SLT will be held via the Teams online on Saturday 07 November 2026" with "Discussion of at least 2 issues that students have raised via the reporting tool": https://www.oustudents.com/about-us/our-people/leadership-team/meetings-and-papers/November2026/. Let's hope this issue can be discussed.

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Current issues

Force the OU to release student personal information/data regarding possible academic misconduct within five months of it being generated.