Academic Integrity Policy
The University of the Incarnate Word is an academic community dedicated to the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge, and is committed to fostering an intellectual and ethical environment based on the principles of academic integrity. Academic integrity is essential to the success of the University’s educational and research missions. Acts of academic dishonesty violate the principles of academic integrity expected of all members of the University community.
I. Forms of Academic Dishonesty (these include, but are not limited to:)
A. Cheating: Cheating is the use of inappropriate or prohibited materials, information, sources, or aids in any academic exercise. It includes willful direct use of another’s work on one’s own submissions (e.g., looking off of another’s quizzes, examinations, lab reports, etc.). Cheating also includes submitting papers, research results and reports, analyses, artworks, etc. as one’s own work when they were, in fact, prepared by others.
B. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the use of another person’s words, ideas, or results without giving that person appropriate attribution. To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or appropriate indentation and both direct quotation and paraphrasing must be cited properly according to the accepted format for the particular discipline or as required by the instructor in a course. Plagiarism may be willful, as when a student knowingly copies a source without attribution, or negligent, as when a student fails to cite sources properly. Both willful and negligent instances of plagiarism are subject to penalty—in part because professors must judge the result of a student's work, not his or her intentions, and in part because students are expected to know and follow the standards for proper citation of sources. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to the following:
i. The direct copying of any source, such as written and verbal material, computer files, audio disks, video programs or musical scores, whether published or unpublished, in whole or part, without proper acknowledgement that it is someone else's.
ii. The reuse or repurposing of any previously submitted version of one’s own work-product or data into a “new” product without requesting permission from the current instructor (also known as “self-plagiarism”).
iii. Submitting as one’s own work a report, examination paper, computer file, lab report or other assignment that has been prepared by someone else. This includes research papers purchased from any other person or agency
iv. The paraphrasing of another's work or ideas without proper acknowledgement.
C. Fabrication: Fabrication is the invention or falsification of sources, citations, data, or results, and recording or reporting them in any academic exercise. This includes but is not limited to making up or fabricating data as part of a laboratory, fieldwork, clinical documentation, or other scholarly investigation; knowingly distorting, altering or falsifying the data gained by such an investigation; stealing or using without the consent of the instructor data acquired by another student; representing the research conclusions of another as one's own; and undermining or sabotaging the research investigations of another person.
D. Facilitation of Dishonesty: Facilitation of dishonesty is knowingly or negligently allowing one’s work to be used by other students or colluding/unauthorized collaboration with another student without prior approval of the instructor or otherwise aiding others in committing violations of academic integrity. A student who facilitates a violation of academic integrity can be considered to be as culpable as the student who receives the impermissible assistance, even if the facilitator does not benefit personally from the violation.
E. Falsification of Academic Records: Knowingly and improperly changing grades on transcripts, grade sheets, electronic data sheets, class reports, projects, or other academically related documents.
F. Academic Sabotage: Academic sabotage is deliberately impeding the academic progress of others, which may include the destruction or disruption of another individual’s work.
G. Violation of Research or Professional Ethics: Violations in this category include both violations of the code of ethics specific to a particular profession and violations of more generally applicable ethical requirements for the acquisition, analysis, and reporting of research data and the preparation and submission of scholarly work for publication.
H. Violations Involving Potentially Criminal Activity: Violations in this category include theft, fraud, forgery, or distribution of ill-gotten materials committed as part of an act of academic dishonesty.
II. Levels of Violations