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 learner to successfully complete academic work. Examples include:

• Providing other learners with questions/scenarios/simulations/other being used on assessments at any time.
• Damaging any academic work of another learner.
• Influencing or attempting to influence any College employee responsible for processing grades, evaluating learners, 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, photographing, altering 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.

Actions that attempt to get any advantage by means that undermine values of integrity. Examples include:

• Accessing and/or possessing unauthorized resources or devices during assessments including devices that facilitate communication or store information accessible to a learner during an assessment.
• 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.
• Accessing unauthorized use of instant messaging social platforms on an assessment.

Use of undeclared and/or unauthorized third party to assist in the production of work for academic credit or progression, whether or not payment or other favour is involved.

Type of consultancy service when a company or an individual provides customized work to a person to present as their own work. Synonymous with Ghostwriting.

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 is the use of ideas, content, or structures without appropriately acknowledging the source in a setting where originality is expected, leading to unfair advantage. Plagiarism, whether done deliberately or accidentally, is 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.

The production of academic work, in whole or part, for academic credit, progression or award, whether a payment or other favour is involved, using unapproved or undeclared human or technological assistance. For example:

• Submitting content generated by artificial intelligence tools without authorization or required disclosure from the professor.
• Using artificial intelligence tools to produce all or part of an assignment and presenting the content as one’s own work when such use has not been approved.
• Failing to disclose, cite, or otherwise acknowledge the use of generative artificial intelligence in academic work.
• Using unauthorized human assistance to create, edit, rewrite, or substantially improve academic work for submission.
• Combining AI-generated and personally created content in a manner that does not comply with course or assessment requirements.

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

• Providing other learners with questions/scenarios/simulations/other being used on assessments at any time.
• Taking part in unauthorized collaboration with another learner, 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 learners in the course, unless expressly permitted by the professor.

Learners 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.