Promoting Academic Integrity
Resources for students
Compiled by Meagan Karvonen
This page last updated 09/12/2005
Contents
In spring of 2005, faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations began discussing issues that were arising with students about academic integrity. I compiled a list of resources for faculty so we could begin handling academic integrity in a proactive manner, and minimize the chances that violations of the WCU policy would occur. This version of the document was created after faculty requested that the information be made available to students as well.
WCU has policies about “academic honesty” for graduate and undergraduate students. These policies address the following:
1. Cheating. Intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise.
2. Fabrication. Intentional falsification or invention of information or citation in an academic exercise.
3. Plagiarism. Intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of someone else as one’s own in an academic exercise.
4. Facilitation of Academic Dishonesty. Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help someone else to commit an act of academic dishonesty, such as knowingly allowing another to copy information during an examination or other academic exercise.
The policy for 2005-06 is listed on page 60 of the undergraduate handbook and pages 29-30 of the graduate handbook.
Procedures for addressing potential violations of the academic honesty policy are provided on pages 28-29 of the Student Handbook. Faculty have the right to determine the penalty for violations of the academic honesty policy in their own classes. However, under WCU policy, the instructor is also required to (1) notify the student in writing about the penalty that is being imposed, and (2) notify the department chair about the incident further action can be taken as necessary.
Some faculty members in this department also view duplicate submission of work as a violation of academic integrity principles. If you are unsure about this issue, check with your instructor.
Resources available through WCU
The Writing Center has a page with several links about avoiding plagiarism, including a guide for students.
There are several other good resources on the web, include one from Purdue University’s online writing lab.
WCU has subscribed to Turnitin, a web-based service that allows comparison of electronic versions of assignments with active and archived web pages and many journals. This service is being used by some faculty to prevent plagiarism (by letting students submit their own work in advance and self-correct any problems that are identified), while others are using it to prove cases of plagiarism once students have submitted suspect work. Turnitin is easy to navigate once you set up an account. Faculty and student instructions are available in PDF format from the WCU WebCT blog. If you are interested in using Turnitin to check a draft of your paper, ask your instructor for more information.
The Office of Student Judicial Affairs handles allegations about academic integrity violations. They may be able to answer questions for you.