Without regard to motive, student conduct that is academically dishonest, that evidences lack of academic integrity, or that unfairly impinges upon the intellectual rights of others is prohibited. Even if a student’s intentions are good, behavior that is academically dishonest, that shows a lack of academic integrity, or that unfairly impacts the intellectual rights of others is prohibited. A non-exhaustive list of prohibited conduct includes the following:
(a) Abuse of Library Privileges – All attempts to deprive others of equal access to library materials violate academic integrity. These attempts include the hiding or hording of library materials for exclusive use; a willful or repeated failure to respond to recall notices; and the removal or attempt to remove library materials from the College library without authorization. Marking, defacing, theft, or destruction of books and articles or other library materials that serves to deprive others of equal access to these materials also violates academic integrity.
(b) Abuse of Shared Electronic Media – Actions that take away equal access to shared electronic media used for academic purposes constitute a violation.
(c) Bribery – Includes bribing, or attempting to bribe, faculty or staff to attain an unfair academic advantage.
(d) Cheating – Attempting to use or using unauthorized material or information as study aids in any academic exercise. Receiving or giving information by any means before, during, or after tests, quizzes, and/or examinations when not specifically allowed by the instructor is a form of unauthorized assistance and is, therefore, cheating. Specific examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
- copying an answer from another student’s test;
- using unauthorized notes of any kind during a test;
- using any signals or codes to share information during a test;
- use of programming calculators or other electronic devices with stored data, notes, programs, or any other unauthorized information;
- unauthorized collaboration on take home exame;
- use of unauthorized material, including text and notes, during take home exams or homework assignments;
- failure to observe time limits or any other conditions imposed by the professor on take home exams;
- unauthorized sharing of tests, quizzes, or other class material.
(e) Counterfeit work – Includes work turned in as one’s own that was created, researched, or produced by someone else. Turning in a report of another’s research, submitting a paper researched or written by someone else, having someone else take a test, submitting joint projects as solely one’s own, and copying someone’s computer file and making changes to it are all forms of counterfeit work and are unacceptable. A student should not give or e-mail a computer file to someone to compare his or her assignment to; this may lead to the work being counterfeited.
(f) Damaging campus computer systems – Attempted acts of academic dishonesty that result in the damage or sabotage of campus computer systems.
(g) Destroying evidence – Destroying evidence related to an ongoing investigation of an alleged honor code violation.
(h) Engaging in, Conspiring to Engage in, or Facilitating Academic Dishonesty – Intentionally helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty, instances of which will include, but are not limited to the following:
- turning in the same work to more than one class without consent of the instructors involved;
- communicating all or any part of tests or answer sheets specifically prepared for a given course and as yet not used or publicly released by the instructor of a course, and the theft of completed tests;
- knowingly and improperly changing grades on transcripts, grade sheets, electronic data sheets, related documents, academic reports, tests and projects, altering medical excuses, or submitting false information on any official College document;
- using copyrighted material without proper authorization. This includes, but is not limited to musical scores, plays, books, and articles.
(i) Intimidation – Threatening any member of the College community to prevent the person from reporting or testifying regarding an alleged honor code violation.
(j) Lying – Intentionally giving false information to professors or instructors for the purpose of gaining academic advantage, instances of which will include, but are not limited to, the following:
- attempting to deceive professors to reschedule tests or assignments;
- lying about absences;
- lying about one’s own involvement in plagiarism or cheating; lying about another student’s involvement in plagiarism or cheating.
(k) Plagiarism – Includes presenting as one’s work the work of someone else without properly acknowledging the source. Plagiarism is theft – using words and ideas of another person as if they were one’s own. Exact copying should be enclosed in quotation marks and be appropriately documented in footnotes or end notes that indicate the source of the quotation. Paraphrasing, when the basic sentence structure and word choice remain the same, is also plagiarism. When in doubt about these matters, it is the student’s responsibility to seek guidance from the instructor of the course. Students should also consult the college-wide guidelines on plagiarism.
(l) Using False Citations – False citation occurs when a student gives credit for an idea or information (any intellectual property) to an incorrect or made-up source with the intention to deceive. False attribution seriously damages the integrity of academic work by breaking a chain of ideas, which should be traceable link by link.
(m) Vandalism – The intentional damage of intellectual property belonging to others, instances of which will include, but are not limited to,
- hiding or damaging any course material
- breaking and entering for the purposes of academic dishonesty.
