Academic Honesty

As members of a scholarly community dedicated to healthy intellectual development, students and faculty at Edgewood College are expected to share the responsibility for maintaining high standards of honesty and integrity in their academic work. Each student should reflect this sense of responsibility toward the community by submitting work that is a product of his or her own effort in a particular course, unless the instructor has directed otherwise. In order to clarify and emphasize its standards for academic honesty, the College has adopted this policy: The following are examples of violations of standards for academic honesty and are subject to academic sanctions: 

• Cheating on exams
• Submitting collaborative work as one's own
• Falsifying records, achievements, field or laboratory data, or other course work
• Stealing examinations or course materials
• Submitting work previously submitted in another course, unless specifically approved by the present instructor
• Falsifying documents or signing an instructor's or administrator's name to any document or form
• Plagiarism
• Aiding another student in any of the above actions.

A student has the right to appeal any sanctions that result from an alleged violation of standards for academic honesty. Such appeals should follow established academic appeals procedures.
Back to Top

Academic Sanctions

Since cheating occurs in a specific context, penalties for specific violations of standards for academic honesty are difficult to stipulate in advance. Certain violations, such as stealing and plagiarizing, involve legal as well as ethical concerns, and therefore sanctions for these will generally be more severe. Sanctions enforced by the instructor may include: reducing an assignment grade, reducing a course grade, assigning additional work, and/or referring the violation to the Associate Academic Dean for appropriate action.
Back to Top

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, which is defined as the deliberate use of another's ideas or words or images as if they were one's own, can take many forms, from the egregious to the mild. Instances most commonly seen in work by students in order from most to least serious are:

• borrowing, buying, or stealing another person's work for one's own use
• lending or selling one's own work for another's use as his or her own
• getting so much help on a work from someone else, including a college tutor, that the student can no longer legitimately claim to be the author/creator
• intentionally using source material** improperly, e.g., neither citing nor using quotation marks on borrowed materials
• supplying an in-text citation but failing to enclose quoted material within quotation marks
• leaving paraphrased material too close to the original version
• failing to give credit to the original author/creator as the source of an idea, image, or paraphrased material
• failing to provide a list of works cited or misusing borrowed sources through ignorance or carelessness

**Source material can include ideas, words or images from any source in any format (including books, newspapers, journals, magazines, pamphlets, interviews, video and internet sites). The student's "work" can include written essays, oral presentations, art work, lab experiments--any ideas, words or images in any format (written, graphic, electronic, etc.).

Academic Sanctions: Since cheating occurs in a specific context, penalties for specific violations of standards for academic honesty are difficult to stipulate in advance. Certain violations, such as stealing and plagiarizing, involve legal as well as ethical concerns, and therefore sanctions for these will generally be more severe. Sanctions enforced by the instructor may include: reducing an assignment grade, reducing a course grade, assigning additional work, and/or referring the violation to the Associate Academic Dean for appropriate action.

A student has the right to appeal any sanctions that result from an alleged violation of standards for academic honesty. Such appeals should follow established academic appeals procedures.
Back to Top