CODE OF ACADEMIC HONESTY

Introduction

Honesty is an essential value of our academic community. You are here to learn, and learning depends upon hard work and academic honesty. Your instructors set high standards and expect you to do your very best, completing your work honestly.

Any student who registers for courses in the ADK School of Health Sciences has, in essence, agreed to the value of learning and thus to the importance of the School’s Code of Academic Honesty.

Student pledge

All students are required to undertake the following pledge as part of the enrolment in the School.

Students who choose not to live up to this pledge will be asked to leave the School as per the provisions of this code.

"I pledge to do my own academic work and to excel to the best of my abilities, upholding the ADK School of Health Sciences Challenge. I promise not to lie about my academic work, to cheat, or to steal the words or ideas of others, nor will I help fellow students to violate the Code of Academic Honesty.”

Offense

The following are examples of offenses against the Code of Academic Honesty in the ADK School of Health Sciences. Many of these categories overlap. Offenses are not limited to this list and include other types of cheating, misrepresentation, and dishonesty.

Cheating on quizzes and exams

• Using notes, books, calculators, phones, photos, computers, web sites, tweets, social media, or other aids during a quiz or an exam when not allowed by the instructor.
• Talking during a quiz or exam when told by the instructor talking is not permitted.
• Looking at another student’s exam or quiz during the testing period. 
• Continuing to work on a quiz or exam after the instructor has notified students that time for the test has ended. 
• Stealing, reproducing, circulating, or otherwise gaining access to a quiz, exam, or homework materials prior to the time authorized by an instructor. 
• Ignoring the guidelines specified by the instructor for an assignment or for a "take home" test and instead using materials or study aids that the instructor has forbidden

Plagiarism

• Using the words, sentences, arguments, rhetorical structures, and ideas of another without proper citation and acknowledgment. 
• Copying data, facts, graphs, computer programs, spreadsheets, images, photos, film/video, or other materials and using them without proper citation or acknowledgment. 
• Copying homework, quiz, or exam answers from an answer key, solution manual, textbook, web site, or other items from another student, thus presenting another’s work as your own 
• Failing to use quotation marks properly or when needed. 
• Failing to give a source for quoted materials. 
• Failing to paraphrase language completely. 
• Failing to give a source for paraphrases. 
• Failing to cite sources correctly and completely.

Unauthorized Collaboration

• Receiving help with homework, reports, labs, paper, data collection, or other activities when not allowed by the instructor. 
• Accepting credit for a group project without doing your share of the work. 
• Helping others with their homework or other assignments when not allowed by the instructor. 
• Allowing others to view your answers or copy part of your homework, lab, quiz answers, exam answers, or other related work when not permitted to do so by the instructor.
• A group doing another student’s work on a group project, lab, presentation, report, or other  activity while presenting the work as if done by the entire group equally.

Willful Misrepresentation

• Fabricating quotations. 
• Fabricating sources. 
• Fabricating, dishonestly adjusting, omitting, or otherwise misrepresenting research results and records, including information, data, statistics, research facts, and its analysis.
• Engaging in selective reporting or omission of conflicting data for deceptive purposes. 
• Altering graded work, then resubmitting it for new grade. 
• Providing false information about reasons for class absences or late work when requesting a make-up quiz or exam or an extension for homework. 
• Submitting the same paper in more than one class without the approval of the instructors involved. 
• Submitting a paper from a previous semester for a current class without the approval from the instructor. 
• Failing to provide required or requested information regarding academic performance or enrollments at previous institutions. 
• Intentionally obstructing or interfering with other students' academic work, or otherwise undertaking activity with the purpose of creating or obtaining an unfair academic advantage over other students' academic work.
• Altering documents affecting academic records, such as falsifying information on an official academic document, form, grade report, letter of permission, clinical record, student ID cards, or any other official document. 
• Providing false information to others about academic performance, leadership activities, or membership in student organizations.
• Falsification of information records. 
• Recording hours not actually worked. 
• Submitting an altered or fabricated preceptor evaluation. 
• Altering a score, grade, or schedule change on an academic record. 
• Forging the signature of an instructor, advisor, dean, or another student. 
• Creating false university, college, or other official correspondences (such as medical documentation). 
• Facilitating academic dishonesty of others. 
• Writing a paper for another student. 
• Allowing another student to use your past homework, papers, lab work, or similar items. 
• Sharing homework with another student when told collaboration is not allowed.
• Allowing or helping another student to look at your exam or quiz during a test. 
• Sharing with other students your notes, books, calculators, phones, photos, computers, web sites, tweets, social media, or other aids during a quiz or an exam when not allowed by the instructor. 
• Completing another student’s exam or quiz. 
• Providing any materials, information, or assistance to another person with the knowledge or reasonable expectation that such would be used for dishonest purposes.

Consequences of academic misconduct

Academic dishonesty diminishes your education and the classroom experience for other students, undermining the mission of serving all students fairly and equally.

• Instructors in the School will fail any assignment showing evidence of academic dishonesty. Instructors may also fail a student for the course for academic misconduct with prior permission and in consultation with the School.
• Instructors report all incidents of academic fraud to the Course Coordinator. These reports are shared with Academic Review Committee and Head of School. The report is kept internally until the student graduates.

The School assigns the student additional consequences, listed below, based on the offense and the number of offenses by the student previously reported to the School.

First offense

If found responsible for a first incident of academic misconduct, the student will be assigned to complete a 24 (twenty four) hours community service task, within the hospital or any other such institution that the school places the student at. Such services will be supervised and timed by an assigned supervisor and an assessment submitted to the school. The student may not continue the studies until such time the community service is completed and a satisfactory assessment report is submitted to the school from the supervisor.

Second offence

The school will have a zero tolerance policy for a second offense of plagiarism. The student will be expelled from the School for that offense. This is added to the student's permanent record and is visible on the transcript. The student is not allowed to enroll in any courses offered at the School.

Note: At times, the above sanctions are modified or combined based on the particulars of a situation.

Further information

All students in are invited to discuss academic misconduct and its consequences as well as how to appeal a decision made by the School. You may contact the course coordinator for more information about this policy.

Appeals

All students have the right to file an appeal about a decision related to academic misconduct. 

If a student believes that the finding of academic misconduct is in error or the grade assigned by the instructor unjust, the student should first arrange a meeting with the instructor and then, if needed, with the course coordinator to discuss the matter. If a misunderstanding has occurred, it can be clarified by speaking with the instructor first, and thus all students are encouraged to meet with their instructor before pursuing any other appeal process.

If the student is dissatisfied with the result of these meetings, the student may appeal the decision formally in writing to the Head of the School. This formal appeal must be received within seven days from the date of the original decision made by School.

If the student is still not satisfied with the result of this formal process, the student may appeal that decision to the Committee to Resolve Student Grievances. The Committee must receive this request to appeal to the Committee within seven days of the previous appeal decision made by the Head of School.