What is Academic Misconduct?

Any action that encourages, enables, or causes others to attempt or commit an act of academic misconduct; interfering with the ability of another student to successfully complete academic work. Examples include:

• Providing other students with questions/scenarios/simulations/other being used on assessments at any time.
• Damaging any academic work of another student.
• Influencing or attempting to influence any College employee responsible for processing grades, evaluating students, or maintaining academic records, through the use of bribery, threats, or any other means of coercion in order to affect a grade or evaluation.
• Altering, destroying, hiding, or otherwise restricting access to academic materials intended for general use.
• Any forgery, alteration, unauthorized possession or misuse of College documents such as copying or photographing assessment questions and assignments.
• Unauthorized access of an electronic file for the purpose of using, reading or altering its contents.
• Unauthorized copying, use and/or transfer of one or more or parts of files or data within a file.
• Not complying with laws regarding copyright, trademark, and/or licensing agreements pertaining to the use of print and electronic materials, software, databases, and all other resources and materials.
• Being disruptive during an exam or other assessment.

Using unauthorized aids or supports in order to secure an unfair advantage during testing or other evaluation/assessment. Examples include:

• Accessing or possessing unauthorized materials, unauthorized information or devices during assessments.
• Obtaining an assessment, in whole or in part, in advance of its administration, without the permission of the professor.
• Changing grades or answers on an assignment for the purpose of regrading.
• Failing to abide by the instructions of the professor or proctor concerning assessment procedures, such as, but not limited to, talking or failing to adhere to start/stop times.

A third-party completing work, with or without payment, for a student, who then submits the work as their own, where such input is not permitted.

Falsifying information with the goal of deception. Examples include:

• Submitting false, fraudulent or purchased assignments, research or credentials.
• Taking or releasing, without permission, the ideas or data of others that were shared with the expectation that they were confidential.
• Falsifying, altering, withholding or concocting medical records, compassionate documents, correspondence, academic documents, research results, references, or research sources.
• Forging or using College documents, records or instruments of identification with intent to defraud.
• Impersonating another or permitting someone to impersonate you, either in person or electronically, for academic assessment or in order to improperly gain access to services.
• Unauthorized use of another’s identification/username and password.

Plagiarism, whether done deliberately or accidentally, is defined as presenting someone else’s work, in whole or in part, as one’s own. This applies to ideas, wording, code, graphics, music, and inventions from all sources, including the Internet, television, video, film, and recordings; all print and written sources, such as books, periodicals, lyrics, government publications, promotional materials, and academic assignments; and all verbal sources such as conversations and interviews. Sharing one’s work with other learners where this has not been authorized is also considered an act of plagiarism. The reuse of one’s own words, ideas, artistic expression or work from pre-existing material especially without acknowledgment of their earlier use, is self-plagiarism.

Working with others without the knowledge or consent of the professor. Examples include:

• Providing other students with questions/scenarios/simulations/other being used on assessments at any time.
• Accessing or possessing unauthorized materials, unauthorized information or devices during assessments.
• Taking part in unauthorized collaboration with another student, which may include letting your answers be viewed, lending your work, or working in a group on an assessment that is deemed to be an individual effort, and submitting the same course work as one or more students in the course, unless expressly permitted by the professor.

Students submitting the same work previously submitted for grading in the same or of another course without the professor’s knowledge and/or permission and/or citations and references. This may also be considered self-plagiarism.