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Policy on Academic Integrity for Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Academic Integrity
Violations of Academic Integrity
Cheating
Fabrication
Facilitating Academic Dishonesty
Plagiarism
Denying others access to information or material

Academic Dishonesty Offenses and Sanctions
Level One Violations
Level Two Violations
Level Three Violations
Level Four Violations

Consequences of Violating the Academic Integrity Policy
Administration of the Academic Integrity Policy
Committee on Student Conduct
Complaint Procedure

Amendments to the Integrity Code
Minor Changes
Major Changes

Afterword

I Academic Integrity

Academic freedom is a fundamental right in any institution of higher learning. Honesty and integrity are necessary preconditions of this freedom. Academic integrity requires that all academic work be wholly the product of an identified individual or individuals. Joint efforts are legitimate only when the assistance of others is explicitly acknowledged. Ethical conduct is the obligation of every member of the University community, and breaches of academic integrity constitute serious offenses.

Maintenance of the standards of academic honesty and the successful administration of this policy depend on the mutual cooperation of faculty and students. Dissemination of the Academic Integrity Policy to all faculty, staff, and students will ensure that all members of the community are informed about academic integrity.

Faculty cooperation is essential for successful application of the procedures defined by the Academic Integrity Policy. Faculty members can help promote academic integrity by making clear on their syllabi their expectations concerning homework assignments, collaborative student efforts, research papers, examinations, and the like. Efforts should be made to detect and to prevent cheating and plagiarism in all academic assignments. If faculty members have evidence of academic dishonesty, they are expected to report such evidence promptly.

Students must assume responsibility for maintaining honesty in all work submitted for credit and in any other work designated by the instructor of the course. Students are also expected to report incidents of academic dishonesty to the instructor or dean of the instructional unit.

This policy seeks to demonstrate the University's concern with academic dishonesty and to guarantee a fair procedure for resolving complaints of academic dishonesty.

II Violations of Academic Integrity

The various ways in which academic honesty can be violated are discussed below. The comments and examples within each section provide explanations and illustrative material, but do not necessarily exhaust the scope of these violations.

A. Cheating

Cheating is the use of inappropriate and unacknowledged materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise. The use of books, notes, calculators and conversation with others is restricted or forbidden in certain academic exercises. Their use in these cases constitutes cheating. Similarly, students must not request others (including commercial term paper companies) to conduct research or prepare any work for them, nor may they submit identical work or portions thereof for credit or honors more than once without prior approval of the instructor.

B. Fabrication

Fabrication is the falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise. "Invented" information may not be used in any laboratory experiment or other academic exercise without authorization from the instructor. It is improper, for example, to analyze one sample in an experiment and covertly "invent" data based on that single experiment for several more required analyses. The student must also acknowledge reliance upon the actual source from which cited information was obtained. A writer should not, for example, reproduce a quotation from a book review and indicate that the quotation was obtained from the book itself.

C. Facilitating Academic Dishonesty

Students who knowingly or negligently allow their work to be used by other students or who otherwise aid others in academic dishonesty are violating academic integrity. Such students are as guilty of intellectual dishonesty as the student who receives the material even though they may not themselves benefit academically from that dishonesty.

D. Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the representation of the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise. To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or by appropriate indentation and must be properly cited in the text or in a footnote. Acknowledgment is required when material from another source stored in print, electronic or other medium is paraphrased or summarized in whole or in part in one's own words. To acknowledge a paraphrase properly, one might state: "to paraphrase Plato's comment..." and conclude with a footnote identifying the exact reference. A footnote acknowledging only a directly quoted statement does not suffice to notify the reader of any preceding or succeeding paraphrased material. Information which is common knowledge such as names of leaders of prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc, need not be footnoted; however, all facts or information obtained in reading or research that are not common knowledge among students in the course must be acknowledged.

In addition to materials specifically cited in the text, only materials that contribute to one's general understanding of the subject may be acknowledged in the bibliography. Plagiarism can, in some cases, be a subtle issue. Any questions about what constitutes plagiarism should be discussed with the faculty member.

E. Denying others access to information or material

It is a violation of academic integrity to deny others access to scholarly resources, or to deliberately impede the progress of another student or scholar. Examples of offenses of this type include: giving other students false or misleading information; making library material unavailable to others by stealing or defacing books or journals, or by deliberately misplacing or destroying reserve materials; or altering computer files that belong to another.

III Academic Dishonesty Offenses and Sanctions

Any violation of academic honesty is a serious offense and is therefore subject to an appropriate penalty. Violations at Rutgers University are classified into four levels according to the nature of the infraction. For each level of violation a corresponding set of sanctions is recommended. Deans and Hearing Panels are not bound by these illustrations, which are intended as general guidelines for the academic community. Since adherence to a code of conduct can be seen as a function of socialization into the group whose norms are reflected in such a code, culpability may be assessed differentially for those with more and less experience as members of the academic community; thus, violations of academic integrity by graduate students will presumably be penalized more severely than violations by first semester first year students. Examples are cited below for each level of violation. These examples, too, are illustrations and are not be considered all-inclusive.

Level One Violations

Level One violations may occur because of inexperience or lack of knowledge of principles of academic integrity on the part of persons committing the violation. These violations are likely to involve a small fraction of the total course work, are not extensive, and/or occur on a minor assignment. Cases involving Level One violations may be heard by discipline panels of the colleges and schools in New Brunswick. The following are examples:

1. Working with another student on a laboratory or other homework assignment when such work is prohibited.
2. Failure to footnote or give proper acknowledgment in an extremely limited section of an assignment.

Recommended sanctions for level one violations are listed below; one of these may be chosen in each case:

1. Required attendance in a non-credit workshop or seminar on ethics or related subjects.
2. An assigned paper or research project on a relevant topic.
3. A make-up assignment at a more difficult level than the original assignment.
4. A recommendation to the instructor that no credit be given for the original assignment.

Records of students who commit Level One offenses will be maintained in the respective Dean's Offices until graduation.

Level Two Violations

Level Two violations are characterized by dishonesty of a more serious character or which affects a more significant aspect or portion of the course work. Cases involving Level Two violations may be heard by discipline panels of the college in which the student is a candidate for a degree, or, in the case of a student who is not a candidate for a degree, by the disciplinary panel of such unit as will be assigned by the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs. The following are examples:

1. Quoting directly or paraphrasing, to a moderate extent, without acknowledging the source.
2. Submitting the same work or major portions thereof to satisfy the requirements of more than one course without permission from the instructor.
3. Using data or interpretative material for a laboratory report without acknowledging the sources or the collaborators. All contributors to preparation of data and/or to writing the report must be named.
4. Receiving assistance from others, such as research, statistical, computer programming, or field data collection help that constitutes an essential element in the undertaking without acknowledging such assistance in a paper, examination or project.

The recommended sanction for Level Two violations is disciplinary probation. In cases of academic dishonesty involving out-of-class assignments, the panel may recommend a failing grade for the assignment involved and the grade in the course will be determined in the normal manner. However, cheating on a take-home final examination would normally carry a recommended penalty that the faculty member fail the student in the course, as well as disciplinary probation.

Notation of disciplinary probation will be placed on the student's transcript and will remain for the period in which the sanction is in force. Records of students who commit Level Two offenses will be maintained in the respective Dean's Office until graduation.

Level Three Violations

Level Three violations are those that go beyond level one or two and that, in the opinion of the College Judicial Officer require adjudication at the University level. Level Three violations include dishonesty that affects a major or essential portion of work done to meet course requirements, or involves premeditation, or is preceded by one or more violations at levels one and two. Cases involving Level Three violations are heard under the University Code of Student Conduct. Examples include:

1. Copying on hourlies or final examinations.
2. Plagiarizing major portions of a written assignment.
3. Acting to facilitate copying during an exam.
4. Using prohibited materials, e.g., books, notes, or calculators during an examination.
5. Collaborating before an exam to develop methods of exchanging information and implementation thereof.
6. Altering examinations for the purposes of regrading.
7. Acquiring or distributing an examination from unauthorized sources prior to the examination.
8. Presenting the work of another as one's own.
9. Using purchased term paper or other materials.
10. Removing posted or reserved material, or preventing other students from having access to it.
11. Fabricating data by inventing or deliberately altering material (this includes citing "sources" that are not, in fact, sources.
12. Using unethical or improper means of acquiring data.
The sanction typically to be sought for all Level Three violations or repeated violations of Level One and Two offenses is a minimum of a one semester suspension from the University.

Level Four Violations

Level Four violations represent the most serious breaches of intellectual honesty. Such cases are heard under the University Code of Student Conduct. Examples of Level Four violations include:

1. All academic infractions committed after return from suspension for a previous academic honesty violation.
2. Infractions of academic honesty in ways similar to criminal activity (such as forging a grade form, stealing an examination from a professor or from a university office; buying an examination; or falsifying a transcript to secure entry into the University or change the record of work done at the University) 3. Having a substitute take an examination or taking an examination for someone else.
4. Fabrication of evidence, falsification of data, quoting directly or paraphrasing without acknowledging the source, and/or presenting the ideas of another as one's own in a senior thesis, within a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation, in scholarly articles submitted to refereed journals, or in other work represented as one's own as a graduate student.
5. Sabotaging another student's work through actions designed to prevent the student from successfully completing an assignment.
6. Willful violation of a canon of the ethical code of the profession for which a graduate student is preparing.
The typical sanction for all Level Four violations and a repeat infraction at level three is permanent expulsion from the University. Such cases are heard under the-University Code of Student Conduct. Notation of "academic disciplinary separation" will be placed on a student's transcript and remain permanently.

IV Consequences of Violating the Academic Integrity Policy

Students committing acts of academic dishonesty not only face university censure but run a serious risk of harming their future educational and employment opportunities. In addition to the notation for a specific sanction placed on the student's transcript and which remains for the term of the sanction, prospective employers and other educational institutions frequently use recommendation forms that ask for judgment and comment on an individual's moral or ethical behavior. Since such forms are sent with the permission of the student, University faculty and administrators knowledgeable of academic dishonesty infractions are ethically bound to report such incidences. In all cases in which a grade of "F" is assigned for disciplinary reasons, moreover, the "F" will remain on the student's transcript, even if the course is retaken and a passing grade is achieved.

V Administration of the Academic Integrity Policy

A. Committee on Student Conduct

The Committee on Student Conduct will be responsible for monitoring the Policy on Academic Integrity, and will serve as a hearing appeals board for all cases of academic dishonesty in New Brunswick that involve separation from the University. The committee shall meet at least once a semester.

B. Complaint Procedure

Evidence of academic dishonesty should initially be brought to the attention of the instructor or to the dean of the degree granting unit or his/her designate, but any member of the academic community may present evidence of academic dishonesty to the dean. If a student reports a breach of the policy, the instructor of the course is obliged to cooperate in undertaking an investigation. If a student (or students) from only one degree-granting unit is involved, the case will be assigned to the College Judicial Officer of the student's (or students') degree-granting unit.

Any questions concerning the appropriate level of a particular offense should be referred to the College Judicial Officer who, in consultation will make a determination.

Students may continue to participate in a course or research activities until the case has been adjudicated. Under no circumstances should a student be offered a choice of either dropping a course or facing disciplinary action.
All disciplinary proceedings are confidential. Faculty members and students are cautioned not to discuss cases of academic dishonesty outside of the legitimate hearings prescribed by the policy.

If the penalty for an offense is one for which the sanction is separation from the University, (Level Three and Level Four), the dean of the degree-granting unit will notify the New Brunswick Disciplinary Officer and send the case to the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs to be heard under the University Code of Student Conduct. Hearing guidelines and appeal procedures are outlined in the Code of Student Conduct.

VI Amendments to the Integrity Code

A. Minor Changes

The New Brunswick Committee on Student Conduct may recommend minor changes which will go into effect at the beginning of the next academic year, providing that all units have been informed of the proposed changes and none has objected that the changes are major ones.

B. Major Changes

Major changes, like minor ones, may be proposed by any unit for consideration by the University Senate. If units representing three-fifths of the total number of faculty members and three-fifths of the units in New Brunswick approve the proposed changes, then the changes will become part of the policy.

Afterword

The Policy on Academic Integrity was developed by a committee composed of representatives from all the undergraduate and graduate schools of the New Brunswick Campus. Comments and suggestions were made by the Deans, faculty, students, and staff members in the various academic units and in the Office of the Provost. The academic integrity regulations of many other major public institutions were consulted. The University is indebted to all those who have contributed their ideas to this policy. Requests for additional copies should be directed to either the College Judicial Officers or the Director of Judicial Affairs.