Terminology

Students are expected to submit materials that are their own, and to provide proper credit for any language or ideas that are not their own.  Violations of academic dishonesty are defined below and include, but are not limited to:

• Cheating
• Proper Citation of Sources and Plagiarism
• Falsification
• Collusion
• Copyright and
• Abuse of physical/personal or intellectual property.
• Misuse of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI or AI)

Such dishonesty may involve written or spoken communication or those conveyed in electronic form.

Cheating

Cheating is the fraudulent or dishonest presentation of work.  It involves the use of unauthorized or unethical assistance to gain an unfair advantage over other students.  Examples of cheating include, but are not limited to:

• Giving, receiving, offering, or soliciting information during an exam, test, quiz, project, paper or assignment. Students should take reasonable care that their examination answers are not seen by others.
• The use or attempted use of unauthorized aids or resources beyond those authorized by the instructor during an exam, test, quiz or other academic exercises (this includes any form of contract cheating[1] ).
• Possession, or an attempt to gain possession, of an exam, test or quiz prior to it being administered.
• Acquisition, dissemination, or use of tests or other academic materials without prior approval whether orally, via hard copies, through social media or other online sources.
• Hiring or otherwise engaging someone to impersonate a student to take an exam, quiz, or test, or complete an assignment, paper, computer program or project. This involves both paying (or otherwise compensating) someone and/or being paid to take an exam for another person.

Proper Citation of Sources and Plagiarism

As a member of an academic community, it is important to credit the sources you use in your research writing. Citation conventions vary across disciplines, and it is important to become familiar with what is expected within your particular field of study. Additionally, ideas about intellectual property vary from culture to culture, so what may be considered fair use in one location may be thought of as plagiarism in another. Generally speaking, you should credit all sources in your

research, using the citation style appropriate to your field (e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago Style, etc.) whether you quote directly, paraphrase, or summarize what you have read.

• Quoting: a short passage of the original author’s exact words inside quotation marks
• Paraphrasing: a segment of someone else’s work that you have put into your own words
• Summarizing: presenting the overall idea of a work condensed into a compact format

To maintain academic integrity, you must cite the sources you use in all three of these cases.

Plagiarism is the act of taking words, ideas, data, illustrations or creative work of another person or source and presenting them as your own.  Plagiarism takes place whether such theft is accidental or deliberate.  A claim of forgetting to document ideas or materials is no defense. There are three basic types of plagiarism that can compromise a student’s academic integrity:

• Intentional Misrepresentation: This occurs when a student deliberately attempts to present another’s work as his or her own. This can include copying or paraphrasing someone else’s writing without attributing the source, buying a paper online, having someone else write the paper, or a student “recycling” a paper written previously for another class or context.
• Unintentional Misrepresentation: When a student is not familiar with community citation standards, or that these standards may be different in diverse locations, it is possible to plagiarize due to uncertainty or lack of knowledge. When in doubt, cite your sources.
• Patchwriting: Rebecca Moore Howard (1993) defines "patchwriting" as "copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one synonym-substitutes." This type of plagiarism is not always the result of dishonesty; sometimes it occurs because students are not familiar with the ideas or language they are attempting to incorporate. Nevertheless, it is still considered plagiarism even if the sources are cited.

Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:

• Using published material verbatim without using quotation marks and giving proper credit to the author.
• Paraphrasing someone else’s information without appropriately citing the source.
• Submitting a paper or assignment that has been prepared by another person, group, or commercial company.
• Copying another student’s assignment or computer program with or without permission from the author.
• Expressing in the student’s own words someone else’s ideas without giving proper credit.
• Unfairly using material, such as taking large portions of another person’s work without a substantial addition of one’s own ideas or commentary.

Falsification

Falsification involves misrepresenting records in order to achieve academic gain.  It involves making false statements that mislead others.  Examples include the following:

• Fabrication, misrepresentation or unauthorized alteration of academic records such as grade reports, transcripts, admission and financial aid applications, resumes, portfolio essays, and internships.
• Forgery and/or misrepresentation of any signature on an academic document.
• Lying to or deceiving an instructor, or any other school official.
• Influencing, or attempting to influence, any University employee in order to affect a grade or evaluation.
• Fabricating information such as making up references in a bibliography.
• Falsifying or manipulating research data or laboratory results.
• The submission of a falsified excuse for an absence or extension on an assignment.
• The presentation of false identification or credentials to gain admission to a course, exam, test or degree program.

Collusion

Collusion is defined as assisting or attempting to assist another student in an act of academic dishonesty.

It may involve collaboration with another person or persons when independent work is expected.  It is the student’s responsibility to seek clarification from the instructor as to what collaboration is allowed on any given graded assignment.  

This may also involve turning in work that is very similar or identical to another classmate’s work or receiving help without prior permission from the instructor.

Copyright

Xavier University course sites contain copyrights held by the instructor, other individuals or institutions. Such material is used for educational purposes in accord with copyright law and/or with permission given by the owners of the original material.  You may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for non-commercial, personal, or educational purposes only, provided that you (1) do not modify it, (2) use it only for the duration of this course, and (3) include both this notice and any copyright notice originally included with the material.   Beyond this use, no material from the course web site may be copied, reproduced, re-published, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way without the permission of the original copyright holder.  The instructor assumes no responsibility for individuals who improperly use copyrighted material placed on the web site.

Abuse of Physical or Intellectual Property

Abusing property comes in many forms.  Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Destruction or alteration of the work of others.
• Unauthorized access or use of university computer accounts or files, and the removal, mutilation or deliberate concealment of academic materials.
• Unauthorized posting/sharing, recording, sale, or use of instructor intellectual property or any academic materials (including in semesters after the student has completed a course).
• The sale of papers, essays, or research for fraudulent use.
• Sabotaging academic work of another member of the University.
• Modification, theft, destruction, or deliberate concealment of intellectual property such as computer files, library materials, or personal books or papers.

Misuse of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI or AI)

Students are expected to originate their own work. Misuse of generative artificial intelligence (known as GAI or AI) includes, but is not limited to, using GAI/AI to write a paper or using GAI/AI to generate assignment responses.

[1] “Contract cheating describes the process through which students can have original work produced for them, which they can then submit as if this were their own work. Often this involves the payment of a fee and this can be facilitated using online auction sites.” http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/contract-cheating/