26.4 Academic or scholastic dishonesty

Introduction

The relationship between faculty and students has always been one of open and honest communication. The faculty member carries the responsibility of presenting course materials via reading assignments, lectures, labs, etc. The student is to learn and understand these materials. Additionally, the faculty members employ various methods to assess the student’s mastery of the course materials. Frequently this is done via quizzes, tests, writing assignments, the completion of lab materials, etc. Academic dishonesty (sometimes called “Scholastic Dishonesty”) is the violation of that trust.

Cheating on quizzes and tests as well as plagiarism is usually well understood by students before arriving at the collegiate level of education. Most colleges include adequate explanation in their student handbook explaining well what constitutes cheating on exams and plagiarism. Academic dishonesty often carries some stiff penalties. Usually, the student receives the grade of “F” from the professor in the course in which he is enrolled. The student might be expelled from all of their classes for which they are currently enrolled (“F” in all of your classes) and expelled from the institution (may not register for classes in the future). Sounds harsh, but it is a violation of the bond of trust between the student and the educational institution.

Collusion

Another category of academic dishonesty is collusion which is the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work (including lab assignments) offered for credit (counting towards your grade calculation). To better understand collusion, students need to realize that as part of the learning and evaluation of that learning, many professors use group projects; a directed or authorized collaboration. Often students are encouraged to form study groups to help discuss the course materials thus improving the learning process. These authorized and sometimes directed activities are not collusion.

The following discussion is to help the student understand collusion (unauthorized collaboration) with specific reference to courses that use computers. This is not an all inclusive list, but will cover the common situations that faculty have encountered over the years. Unless your specific professor informs you differently, you are to assume that the following items discussed are collusion.

Type it yourself

Lab assignments are to be your own personal typing efforts.  That is you are to type them or make the modifications yourself to the files (documents, spreadsheets, databases, programming source code, etc.) If your course is a programming subject, you are to run the source code file on your compiler, making corrections as need to complete the lab assignment. If the directions for an assignment include starting a new file then don’t use an existing file and modify it to complete the assignment. Unless specifically authorized by your professor, students should not complete computerized course work as a team or group and then share the final completed product.