Definitions of Academic Irresponsibility

Definitions

• Academic Misconduct

  Definition: Behavior which precludes one’s work or that of another from being judged fairly.

  Examples:

  • Taking an exam in one section of a course and then discussing the nature and content of that exam with students who have not yet taken the exam.
  • Submitting the same assignment to fulfill requirements in two courses without the written permission of both instructors.
  • Helping with or editing another student’s assignment (including papers, projects, computer program, homework, etc.) in ways that go beyond the instructor’s expectations or beyond the student’s statement of sources.
  • Collaborating with another student in the planning or writing of a theme, project or computer program without the knowledge and permission of the instructor.
  • Stealing and using or giving away an unadministered exam.
  • Stealing an administered exam so that the grades cannot be recorded.
  • Altering or changing a grade either before or after it has been recorded.

   

• Cheating

  Definition: Deceiving by presenting material on an exam or assignment as known when it is not known.

  Examples:

  • Copying from another student on an exam, homework, lab assignment or computer project.
  • Allowing another student to copy from you on an exam, homework, lab assignment or computer project.
  • Using any illegitimate source of information, notes or formula sheets during an exam.
  • Having someone take a test for you or taking a test for someone else.

   

• Fabrication

  Definition: Deceiving by falsifying information or inventing data.

  Examples:

  • Inventing or falsifying research data.
  • Using data in a laboratory report or paper collected by other students on problems similar or identical to one’s own.
  • Citing information or material from sources not used.
  • Citing books, periodicals and other sources in your bibliography which were not used.

   

• Inappropriate Collaboration

  Definition: Collaborative work not expressly allowed by an instructor.

  Reminders:

  • Assume that collaborative work is not permitted unless expressly allowed by your instructor.
  • If you have collaborated with others in any way, you must clearly indicate with whom you have worked and precisely what they contributed.
  • If you're unsure about whether a certain type of collaboration is permissible, ask your teacher.

   

• Misuse of Computing Facilities

  Definition: “Violations of authorial integrity, including plagiarism, invasion of privacy, unauthorized access, trade secret and copyright violations…” (Educom/ADAPSO code)

  Examples:

  Reading or copying computer files or programs without the owner’s explicit permission and with or without the owner’s knowledge to submit this work as one’s own.
  Using another person’s computer logic.

   

• Plagiarism

  Definition: Using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source. It “… is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have, in fact, borrowed from another.” (See the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, [New York: Modern Language Association, 1988], p. 21.)

  Examples:

  • Using a specific idea, detail or illustration pulled from a particular source without reference in a footnote and bibliography.
  • Using general background for an assignment from a book, article or other sources that you don't acknowledge.
  • Submitting another person’s paper, project or homework as your own.
  • Paraphrasing without citing your sources.
  • Using even a brief phrase exactly quoted from a source without putting it in quotation marks, indenting it or citing it.
  • Using material from residence or fraternity files and turning it in as your own work.
  • Using information or material from the internet without citing the sources.

  If you use another person’s ideas or expressions without proper citation, you have committed plagiarism. It is important that in rewriting you demonstrate your own synthesis of ideas and fully credit your original source.

  Paraphrasing causes students the most difficulty. When you change words in a sentence but the idea remains the same, you still must cite your source.