Academic Dishonesty

Higher education and the academic community demand the highest standards of professional ethics and personal integrity from all participants. Violations of these principles are violations of a mutual obligation characterized by trust, honesty, and personal honor. So understood, it is both the right and the responsibility of the University and school to set out rules and regulations governing academic honesty, to impose sanctions against those who violate those rules, and to keep appropriate records of infractions.

I. Academic Dishonesty

The University has established the following statement as its understanding of what constitutes a breach of the principles of academic honesty. The School of Information Studies accepts this as its policy as well:

"Syracuse University students shall exhibit honesty in all academic endeavors. Cheating in any form is not tolerated, nor is assisting another person to cheat. The submission of any work by a student is taken as a guarantee that the thoughts and expressions in it are the student's own except when properly credited to another. Violations of this principle include: giving or receiving aid in an exam or where otherwise prohibited, fraud, plagiarism, the falsification of forgery of any record, or any other deceptive act in connection with academic work. Plagiarism is the representation of another's words, ideas, programs, formulae, opinions, or other products of work as one's own either overtly or by failing to attribute them to their true source." (Section III.A.1, University Rules and Regulations.)

A. Detection and Initial Response

1. Teaching staff, including full-time faculty, adjunct faculty, teaching assistants, and proctors, are asked to take reasonable steps to prevent, detect, and respond appropriately to violations of these policies. Anyone, including students who suspect a violation has taken place, should report it to the instructor of the course within which the violation occurred.

2. Staff members in charge of courses have the right to respond to violations within the context of their own course in a manner they deem appropriate up to and including the rejection of student work believed to be dishonestly created, with work and course grading consequences to follow as they might. Teaching staff responsible for the course may require additional or alternate work in substitution for rejected work, but are under no obligation to do so.

3. When dishonesty is detected and resulting action taken, the instructor must promptly tell the student and indicate any informal or formal hearing procedures available. If deemed appropriate for reasons listed below, the instructor should report the event and its circumstances, in writing, to the associate dean with a copy to the student. Written reports are both useful and necessary as indicated below.
   1. It is useful to the school to keep records of all infractions of its rules and regulations. Instructors will therefore report those cases handled in their own courses, indicating the circumstances of the case and its disposition.

   2. If instructors believe that further action needs to be taken at the school level, reports will be filed outlining the nature and disposition of the case to date and suggesting specific school actions or sanctions. (The sanctions available to the school are indicated in II.C.3. below.) If School sanctions are to be considered, instructors will gather necessary evidence in the case, including the names of witnesses if there are any, to ensure due process.

4. Upon receipt of the instructor's report of alleged violations, the associate dean shall send notice to the student in a secure and timely manner outlining the school hearing and appeal procedures, as well as the student's rights and responsibilities within them. In cases involving non-School of Information of Information Studies students, a copy of such notification shall be sent to the dean of the respective school within which the accused student is enrolled.
   1. Such notification to the student must indicate the name of the person making the charges, the class within which the violation occurred, the work/product in question, the defects giving rise to the charges, and the sanctions, if any, being suggested.

   2. Notification shall inform students of the hearing procedures available to them if they choose to appeal, the date by which notice to appeal must be made, and the nature of these procedures.

1. Students accused of academic honesty violations within School of Information Studies courses have the right to hearing procedures outside and beyond the context of the course itself. Moreover they have the right to challenge what they perceive as unjust actions on the part of instructors in this connection.

2. The initial stage in such procedures shall be an informal hearing before the associate dean and the chairperson of the school's Judicial Board. These preliminary hearings are designed to review accusations or actions already taken; they are not designed to create or apply sanctions, although they can recommend sanctions to the formal hearing panel. The associate dean shall refer all cases not easily disposed of by these preliminary hearings to the Judicial Board for formal hearings.

3. Prompt, secure, written notification of the results of this informal hearing will go out to all relevant parties, together with the rationale for the judgment, notification of rights to a formal hearing, and the sanctions available to the hearing panel.

1. Cases may be brought before the Judicial Board in formal hearings by:
   1. Accused students with continuing grievance after all procedures above are exhausted;

   2. Instructors not satisfied with the disposition of the case to this point;

   3. The dean or associate dean of the school.

2. The specific procedures of these hearings, and the appeal processes that may be invoked beyond them, are outlined under the policy and procedures governing the Judicial Board.

3. The sanctions available to this committee (in recommendation to the dean) include but are not limited to: formal reprimand and warning, disciplinary probation, administrative withdrawal from the course, suspension from the University. (Expulsion will be considered normal in cases of second offenses.) For students enrolled in other colleges, recommendation for action will go to the respective dean via the dean of the School of Information Studies.

1. Any cases involving a finding of dishonesty will be recorded in a confidential file in the dean's office to be reviewed in the event of second offenses. Files are destroyed upon graduation.