8. Academic integrity

Higher education and society both benefit when a college promotes and enforces standards of integrity that provide a foundation for a vibrant academic life, promotes progress in science and arts, and prepares you for responsible citizenship and professional conduct.

The International Centre for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as a commitment to the fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Georgian College endorses these values and is committed to translating them into action. Since they affect the credibility of academic work by students at the college and the credentials held by alumni of the college, breaches of ethics and integrity will not be tolerated(Georgian College’s Academic Integrity Policy (AC-013).

In addition to the areas of academic misconduct outlined in this regulation, offences involving civil or criminal law involving academic work or materials are subject to penalties under the applicable civil or criminal law. You should also be aware that other types of misconduct may be dealt with under other procedures, such as the Student Code of Conduct procedure, the Information Technology Acceptable Use procedure, the Ontario Human Rights Code, or the Criminal Code of Canada.

You are responsible for conducting yourself in a manner on campus, online and on work-integrated learning that brings credit to you and the college community, as outlined in the regulations that follow.

8.1 Student academic responsibilities

8.1.1 Attendance

Faculty determine the requirements for success in your courses. You are responsible for attending classes (whether in-person or online), not only for course content, but also for information related to the progress of the course. Individual programs and courses may have specific attendance requirements. Please refer to the program outline and/or course outline. Tests, examinations, graded assignments, clinical and field placements must be written/submitted/attended on the date and time specified (Section 10 Tests and examinations). Requests for academic accommodations must be made prior to the test/examination/graded assignment/clinical/field placement date. If documented, such requests may allow faculty to make alternate arrangements for assignments and tests or allow consideration of an incomplete contract if necessary (Section 4.3.4 Incomplete grade designation).

8.1.2 Student conduct

The learning environment and activities are determined by the faculty, and guided by mutual respect, common sense, propriety, courtesy, and etiquette. The faculty has the right to require you to cease and desist in actions that are disruptive or that impede positive progress in the course. The faculty has the right to require you to leave the learning environment if positive progress is impeded by your actions or comments. Also, you are not permitted to transmit, distribute, or make materials available that are harassing or discriminatory. Illegal, abusive, obscene, threatening, intimidating, or demeaning transmissions to any individual or group are also prohibited. This includes but is not limited to the use of electronic mail systems and postings on electronic bulletin or message boards, Blackboard, and webpages. Further actions may be taken under law, or the college’s Student Code of Conduct or Human Rights Procedure.

8.1.3 Improper use of technology

A faculty member may ban any device, application or website deemed to impede positive progress of the class or deemed to compromise the integrity of tests or examinations. For detailed information about use of Information Technology, refer to the Information Technology Acceptable Use procedure.

8.1.4 Acting with academic integrity 

You are expected to act with academic integrity throughout your studies at Georgian College, in alignment with the ICAI’s Fundamental Values (2014) and Georgian College’s Academic Integrity Policy (AC-013). This includes the obligation to acknowledge sources; to protect your work; to avoid suspicion, falsification, and fabrication; and to tell the truth. Breaches of academic integrity constitute academic misconduct, outlined in Section 8.2 Academic misconduct below. To support the education and awareness of academic integrity, you are required to successfully pass Georgian’s Academic Integrity module in Blackboard with a grade of 80 per cent or greater, in your first term of study.

8.2 Academic misconduct

The following areas constitute the major types of academic misconduct and are subject to penalties. Please note that misconduct on one or any portion of your work constitutes misconduct; there is no partial responsibility. Fees are not refunded if you are suspended, dismissed, or removed from courses or your program for misconduct. Refer to the penalties chart in section 8.3 Academic misconduct process below.

8.2.1 Cheating

Cheating is the use of inappropriate, prohibited, or unacknowledged materials, information aids, or misrepresentation in any academic work. The unauthorized use of books, notes, online resources, electronic technology (including, but not limited to calculators, cell phones, tablets, and voice and video recorders) and conversation with others is restricted or forbidden in many instances of academic work and their use constitutes cheating. You may not request others (including commercial or free term-paper organizations) or any other form of unauthorized assistance to conduct research or prepare any work for you. In addition, you may not distribute or receive an examination, test or other course material that are not obtained with the permission of the professor.

8.2.1.1 Contract Cheating
 

This is a form of academic dishonesty in which a student outsources their work to a third party with or without payment and then submits it for academic credit. The third party may include web-based services, or people or resources known to the learner. Examples of contract cheating include, but are not limited to:

  • Accessing or purchasing an assignment from a commercial source and submitting it as one’s own for marks
  • Having another person complete an assignment and submitting it as one’s own for marks
  • Outsourcing test or exam questions 

8.2.2 Fabrication

Fabrication is the falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic work or program documentation.

You must never falsify a record of any kind, nor permit another person to do so. Fabricating an academic record includes, but is not limited to clinical permits, criminal reference checks, co-op jobs, placements, employer or placement supervisor evaluation, or signatures.

False information may not be used in any academic work without the prior authorization of the faculty. It is considered misconduct, for instance, to analyze one sample in an experiment and invent data based on that single experiment for several more required analyses. The actual and original source of the information must be acknowledged in a citation (Section 8.2.3 Plagiarism).

8.2.3 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the representation of another's words, computer code, design solution or ideas as your own regardless of how they are generated in any academic work. Whenever you use words, code, design, or ideas that are not your own when submitting scholarly work, you must cite your sources with an in-text citation, use quotation marks where appropriate, and include a list of references for the sources cited. Failure to do this constitutes plagiarism.

You must not allow anyone access to the work you have prepared for evaluation, whether in a test, examination, or assignment, etc. You are the only one who should receive credit for what you know, unless prior agreement has been reached with the faculty that group work (and group credit) is allowed. Therefore, publishing work on a public repository (ex. Course Hero) is prohibited.

8.2.3.1 Self-Plagiarism
 

Self-plagiarism is the resubmission of previous work from another course or from the same course if you are repeating a course, or portions thereof without the permission of the current faculty. You should be aware that plagiarism or self-plagiarism of any part of a work is academic misconduct; there is no partial responsibility or penalty. To avoid plagiarism/self-plagiarism, every source of information must be identified and properly documented according to an established writing convention determined by the faculty, for example, American Psychological Association (APA) style. Faculty have the right to request that you submit your work for electronic text matching and may ask you to submit proof of paper development, including your notes and drafts.

8.2.4 Facilitating academic misconduct

You should not put yourself in a position where you could be suspected of having made your work accessible to others, having copied another’s work, or having used unauthorized aids. You alone should receive credit for what you know, unless prior agreement has been reached with the faculty that group work (and group credit) is allowed. Even the appearance of dishonesty may undermine faculty confidence in your abilities.

If you knowingly or negligently allow your work (including electronic files), portions of your work, or drafts of your work to be used by other students or aid others in committing academic misconduct, you are violating academic integrity. This applies if you hide, misrepresent, or falsify information related to an incident of academic misconduct. You are as responsible as a student who is involved in the incident directly, even though you may not yourself benefit from that act of misconduct and are therefore subject to the same penalties.

8.2.5 Impersonation 

Impersonation is pretending to be another person for the purpose of deception. If you knowingly have someone impersonate you, either in person or electronically, for any academic work or activity, you are violating academic integrity. Both the impersonator and you are subject to the same penalties.  

8.2.6 Denying access to information or material

It is a violation of academic integrity to deny others access to academic resources or to deliberately impede the progress of another student or scholar. This would include giving other students false or misleading information, making library or shared resource material unavailable to others by stealing, deliberately misplacing, defacing, or destroying any of these resources, including computer files that are not your own.

8.2.7 Copyright violation

Canada’s Copyright Act, states the legal and permissible use of copyrighted material. Georgian College has adopted the Association of Canadian Community Colleges Fair Dealing Policy that provides guidance in copying according to the Fair Dealing exception under the Copyright Act. Copying beyond these limits of the guidelines and the Copyright Act, is an academic misconduct for the individual who made the illegal copy. You may also be subject to penalties under the Copyright Act

8.3 Academic misconduct process

The following outlines the process for addressing cases of academic misconduct at Georgian College, as well as related penalties. Procedural fairness will be followed in all instances.

  • If at any point in the process outlined below it is shown, to the faculty’s satisfaction, that the situation is free of academic misconduct, no record is kept of the incident
  • If at any point in the process, you decide to withdraw from the course connected to the academic misconduct the process continues unless otherwise advised by the dean/associate dean or Office of the Registrar
  • If at any point during the process outlined below, you are unresponsive or unwilling to meet within the required timelines, the process proceeds, and the Academic misconduct form (AMF) is forwarded to the Office of the Registrar for processing. Your signature on the form is not required for a penalty to be applied or for a record to be created for you in Banner
  • If an academic misconduct is identified for group work, the process proceeds individually for every member of the group. In cases where one or more members of the group (a subset of the group) are identified to be responsible for the misconduct, only the individual members of the group held responsible will receive a penalty
  • The AMF remains part of your record in the Office of the Registrar, however no indication of academic misconduct is made on your official transcript. Regulatory bodies, partnership institutions or employers may require details around academic misconducts such as number of instances and penalties you have received. As with other documents in your record, access is restricted by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 1990 (Section 7 Academic and related records)
  • From the time the misconduct is found to the time it is recorded on your record, the process should take no longer than 15 working days. You are expected to continue your term while the process is taking place unless otherwise advised by a dean/associate dean, registrar/associate registrar in writing
  • Academic misconduct may also be identified by other employees such as co-op consultants, testing services staff, or any other department at the college who is involved in determining grades for academic work
  • If requested by you, the student success advisor can prompt reflection and support you to build your self-navigation and self-advocacy skills as it relates to the academic misconduct process. It is not the role of the student success advisor to negotiate on your behalf

You can appeal academic misconduct decisions by following the process outlined in Section 8.3 Academic misconduct process of the academic regulations.

Academic misconduct chart

Step Process Owner Resource
1 Suspect academic misconduct Faculty Exam, test, assignment, etc.
2 Inform and consult with the program coordinator Faculty Phone/email
3 The date and time of the meeting with you must be determined within five working days of first identifying suspected misconduct. After five days the misconduct process continues Faculty Banner, timetable/outlook calendar
4 Contact the Office of the Registrar via RORecords@georgiancollege.ca to determine any previous misconducts Faculty Phone/email/or Banner
5 Complete the Academic Misconduct form (AMF) Faculty AMF
6 Conduct a meeting with you. If third offence, provide warning to you that a fourth offence will result in an automatic dismissal from your program and the college for up to five years. Faculty AMF and supporting evidence
7 Within 24 hours of the meeting, you review the AMF and either a) acknowledge the offence, accept the penalty and sign. The form is then sent to the dean/associate dean for final signature and forwarded to the Office of the Registrar, or b) do not acknowledge the offence. If you do not wish to meet/sign the form or fail to provide the required documentation, the process continues Student AMF
8 Send AMF and any supporting evidence to the dean/associate dean within two working days of meeting with you Faculty Email
9 Review AMF and supporting evidence and discuss with faculty. If a meeting with you is required, (as determined by the dean/associate dean) the date and time of meeting must be determined within three working days of receiving the AMF from the faculty Dean/associate dean AMF/phone/email
10 Finalize/sign the AMF and email the form to you with copy to the Office of the Registrar, the student success advisor, and the faculty. In this same message, advise you of the academic appeal process as per section 10.2.1. If the academic misconduct is appealed, the Academic Appeal form (AAF) must be completed and submitted by you to the Office of the Registrar Dean/associate dean AMF
11 Update your information in Banner Office of the Registrar Banner
12 Implement any record changes needed because of the outcome Faculty/Office of the Registrar Blackboard/Banner


Penalties for academic misconduct

The below guidelines are used to assist in penalty assignment, with the understanding that circumstances can occur which may warrant a penalty that differs from the guidelines. Any one or more of the penalties listed below can be applied on your first, second and third offence. The penalty imposed is recommended by the faculty in accordance with the severity of the offence and the number of past misconducts you have. Final decisions with regards to the penalty that is applied will be determined by the dean/associate dean. All fourth offences will result in your automatic dismissal from the program and college for up to five years. You may not return to the same program.

Penalties for academic misconduct chart

Offence Penalty
First - Verbal warning
- Complete assigned remediation (e.g., Academic integrity module or other as identified by the academic area/department)
- Assigned training or advising/academic support
- Re-submit work involved
- Mark of “0” in work involved
Second - Mark of “0” in the course
- Immediate suspension from the college for the current term
- Immediate suspension from the college for the current term, plus one subsequent term
- Immediate dismissal from the program and suspension from the college for one year (12 months)
Third - Mark of “0” in the course
- Immediate dismissal from the program and suspension from the college for one year (12 months)
- Immediate dismissal from the program and the college for three years
Fourth - Automatic dismissal from the program and college for a period ranging from current term, plus one subsequent term, up to five years as determined by the dean/associate dean
 
 

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