Academic Honesty

Students are expected to abide by ethical standards in preparing and presenting material which demonstrates their level of knowledge and which is used to determine grades. Such standards are founded on basic concepts of integrity and honesty. These include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

  1. Students shall not plagiarize, which is defined as:
    1. stealing or passing off as one's own the ideas or words of another
      or,
    2. using a creative production without crediting the source.
      The following cases constitute plagiarism:
      • paraphrasing published material without acknowledging the source,
      • making significant use of an idea or particular arrangement of ideas, e.g., outlines,
      • writing a paper after consultation with persons who provide suitable ideas and incorporating these ideas into the paper without acknowledgement, or
      • submitting under one's own name term papers or other reports which have been prepared by others.
  2. Students shall not cheat, which is defined as
    1. using notes, aids, or the help of other students on tests or exams in ways other than those expressly permitted by the instructor, or
    2. misreporting or altering the data in laboratory or research projects involving the collection of data.
       
  3. Students shall not submit an original paper or project to more than one class without approval from the second instructor. Instructors who do not accept previously submitted papers should so inform the students in the course syllabus.
  4. Students shall not furnish materials or information in order to enable another student to plagiarize or cheat.  Instructors may deal with academic dishonesty in one or more of the following ways:
    1. Assign an appropriate academic penalty such as an oral reprimand or point reduction.
    2. Assign zero points on all or part of a particular paper, project, or exam.
    3. Report to the appropriate administrators, with notification of name of the student(s) for disciplinary action by the school. Such a report will be accompanied by supporting evidence and documentation.