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VIII. Academic Integrity

Disciplinary procedures in instances of student misconduct of an academic nature.

When, in the opinion of a faculty member, a student is responsible for violating University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature, the faculty member MUST notify in writing the associate vice president for academic affairs and institutional effectiveness and the student upon confirmation of the incident. For reporting purposes, an Academic Dishonesty Form is available in the Office of the Registrar or on the OilerNation website (Keyword: Advising forms). A copy of the form will be forwarded to the college dean, area director/department chair, registrar, and the student. Cases will be handled in a timely manner.

Violations of an academic nature may include, but are not limited to, cheating, fabrication, and/or plagiarism. Each of these are defined as follows:

Cheating

Cheating is generally defined as obtaining or creating an unfair advantage in any assignment or examination through the use of unauthorized aid whether given or received. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, the following examples:

  1. Use of external assistance on any in-class or take-home examinations without the faculty member’s specific authorization. This prohibition includes, but is not limited to, the unauthorized use of tutors, books, notes, calculators, databases, software or computers.
  2. Use of another person as a substitute or surrogate in the taking of an examination or quiz.
  3. Theft of examinations or other course materials.
  4. Use or allowance of others to conduct research or to prepare any work for a student without advanced authorization from the faculty member to whom the work is being submitted. Under this prohibition, a student must not make any unauthorized use of materials obtained from commercial term paper companies or files of papers prepared by other persons.
  5. Submission of a written report or project which is represented explicitly or implicitly as the student’s individual work when such work was produced in collaboration with one or more other persons.
  6. Use of any unauthorized assistance in a laboratory, at a computer terminal or on field work.
  7. Work on an examination other than during the time or at a location authorized by the examiner.
  8. Submission of work for credit, when the same work has been or will be used for credit in another course, without the consent of both instructors.
  9. Alteration of a grade or score in any way.
  10. Giving or receiving answers on an assignment, quiz, or examination after the examination. This particularly applies to students that are in different sections of the same class.

Fabrication

Fabrication is the intentional falsification or invention of research, data, citations, or other information. Examples of fabrication include, but are not limited to,

  1. Citing information not taken from the source indicated.
  2. Including in a reference list sources which have not been consulted.
  3. Inventing or altering data or source information for research or other academic exercise.
  4. Falsifying any academic record or other University document.
  5. Presenting data that were collected in an unorthodox or questionable manner.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional presentation of someone else’s words, ideas or data as one’s own work, in written, oral or visual form. If the work of another is used, acknowledgment of the original source must be made through a recognized reference practice, and, if verbatim statements are included, through quotation marks as well. To assure proper crediting a student will acknowledge the work of others,

  1. Whenever one quotes another person’s actual words,
  2. Whenever one uses another person’s idea, opinion, or theory, even if it is completely paraphrased in one’s own words, or,
  3. Whenever one borrows facts, statistics, or other illustrative materials, including images, unless such information is of such common knowledge so as not to be questioned.

All instances of academic dishonesty MUST be reported by the faculty member to the Office of Academic Affairs. Based on the severity of the violation of University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature, the faculty member must choose a course of action. The course of action may include a zero for the assignment, a reduction in possible points for the course, a grade of “F” for the course, or other action outlined by the faculty member. The faculty member must include his or her course of action when notifying the Office of Academic Affairs. When a student has violated University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature the student will not be permitted to withdraw from the course.

Upon notification from the faculty member, the Office of Academic Affairs will notify the student in writing that he or she is charged with violating University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature. This written notification will include the course of action the faculty member has chosen. The student then may appeal in writing the charge of violating University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature by beginning the Application for Formal Inquiry within five working days. Note, the deadline for starting the Application for Formal Inquiry must be adhered to or the appeals process is nullified. The beginning of the process is defined by one of the approved University representative’s signature on the Application for Formal Inquiry. If a student is given an “F” for the course, he or she may not continue to attend the course. However, if the student is issued a grade of “F” for the course and appeals within the five working days, the student may resume attending class pending the final disposition of the matter.

A student accused and found responsible for violating University rules, regulations, or policies of an academic nature a second time during his or her career at The University of Findlay may be dismissed or suspended for a period of time as determined by the Graduate/Undergraduate Student Academic Standards Committee.