All students must be honest and forthright in their academic work. To falsify the results of one's research, to steal the words or ideas of another, to cheat on an assignment, or to allow or assist another to commit these acts corrupts the learning environment. Students are expected to do their own work and neither give nor receive unauthorized assistance. Any violation of this standard must be reported to the Conduct Officer and the Department Dean. The faculty member, in consultation with the Department Dean and/or the Conduct Officer, will decide whether the matter should be processed through the Student Conduct Procedures or resolved without a formal hearing. In the latter case, the faculty member must have the agreement of all students directly affected.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is any other act that disrupts the learning environment or provides a student with an academic advantage over another student. Academic misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

• The unauthorized possession, copying, distribution, sale, or other transfer of all or any part of an academic exercise, or the answers or solutions to an academic exercise, whether or not the exercise has been administered;
• Changing, altering, attempting to change or alter, or assisting another in changing or altering any grade or other academic records, including grades or records contained in a grade book or computer file, that is received for or in any way attributed to academic work;
• Entering any College building, facility, office, or other property, or accessing any computer file or other College record or storage for the purpose of obtaining the answers or solutions to an academic exercise or to change the grade;
• Continuing to work on an academic exercise after the specified allotted time has elapsed;
• Bribing another person to obtain an academic exercise, including answers to questions of an academic exercise that is not administered.

Cheating

Cheating is an act or an attempted act of deception by which a student seeks to misrepresent that they have mastered information that has not been mastered. Cheating includes, but is not limited to:

• Copying of all or any portion of another's academic work and submitting it, in part or in its entirety, as one's own;
• Allowing another person to copy one's own academic work, whether intentionally or recklessly;
• The unauthorized use or possession of a class textbook, notes, or any other material to complete or prepare an academic work;
• The unauthorized collaboration with any other person on an academic exercise, including collaboration on a take-home or make-up academic exercise;
• The unauthorized use of electronic instruments such as cell phones, PDAs, or personal response systems (clickers) to access or share information;
• The unauthorized completion for another person of academic work, or permitting someone else to complete academic work for oneself, including through the use of personal response systems (clickers).

Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is the act of exercising, without permission or legal authority, one or more of the exclusive rights granted to the copyright owner under section 106 of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the U.S. Code). These rights include the right to reproduce or distribute a copyrighted work. In the file-sharing context, downloading or uploading substantial parts of a copyrighted work without authority constitutes an infringement. Unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing, may subject the student to civil and criminal liabilities. For more information, see the website of the U.S. Copyright Office at www.copyright.gov.

Fabrication

Fabrication is the use of invented information or the falsification of research or other findings. Fabrication includes, but is not limited to:

• The false citation or acknowledgment of a direct or secondary source, including the incorrect documentation of a source;
• The citation, in a bibliography or other list of references, of sources that were not used to prepare the academic work;
• The inclusion in an academic work of falsified, invented, or fictitious data or information, or the deliberate and knowing concealment or distortion of the true nature, origin, or function of such data or information; or
• The unauthorized submission of academic work prepared totally or in part by another.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the inclusion of someone else's words, ideas, images, or data as one's own. When a student submits academic work that includes another's words, ideas, images, or data, whether published or unpublished, the source of that information must be acknowledged with complete and accurate references and if verbatim statements are included, with quotation marks as well. By submitting work as his or her own, a student certifies the originality of all material not otherwise acknowledged. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• The quotation or other use of another person's words, ideas, opinions, thoughts or theories (even if paraphrased into one's own words) without acknowledgment of the source;
• The quotation or other use of facts, statistics, or other data or materials (including images) that are not clearly common knowledge without acknowledgment of the source.