Academic Integrity Policy

South Central Interior Distance Education School

Academic Integrity Policy

Rationale

Academic integrity is the commitment to honesty, responsibility, fairness, and respect in learning and academic work and the avoidance of academic dishonesty. It means students complete and present their own work truthfully, give proper credit to the ideas and words of others (including technology like Artificial Intelligence), and follow the rules and expectations of the school. The South Central Interior Distance Education School (SCIDES) has high expectations for students to maintain a standard of respect and honesty within their schoolwork and to abide by the rules of academic integrity.

A school’s Academic Integrity Policy sets explicit boundaries around the learning environments and engages students in ethical pursuits of knowledge and understanding. As technology increasingly dictates the way we find, use, or create information in the 21st century, students must be able to navigate through the different ways that knowledge is presented and shared. We want to prepare students to become lifelong learners who value fairness, integrity, and authenticity in their academic and personal pursuits. Students must be able to understand the concept of intellectual property and the importance of creating authentic work. A breach of academic integrity policy is called academic dishonesty.

Definitions of Academic Dishonesty

To cheat

To act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage

Occurs when an individual undermines the integrity of an assessment (including assignments, reports, projects, quizzes, tests, exams, or other forms of performance evaluations).

Examples of cheating include:

Copying any part of an assessment

Allowing others to copy any part of an assessment

Improperly giving or receiving assessment information

Using unauthorized resources for or during an assessment

Submission of the same assessment more than once

To plagiarize

To take work or ideas that are not yours and pass them off as your own

To copy from someone or something and pass it off as your own.

Examples of plagiarism include:

Lack of recognition or credit given to the original author of content incorporated in a student’s schoolwork. Original authors include all academic research as well as friends, family members, tutors, and artificial intelligence.

All or a portion of submitted work is copied from an author, including both people and artificial intelligence, and presented as the original work of the student.

To falsify

Occurs when an individual has changed information to make one believe something that is not true.

Examples of falsification include:

Falsifying research findings, whether in laboratory experiments or other assignments

Alteration or falsification of academic reports or other academic records for any purpose

Submission of false information or credentials

Making false representation on an application for admission

Requesting the extension of a deadline or delaying the taking or sitting of an assessment citing reasons known or found to be false, including submitting false documentation supporting that request.

Academic Dishonesty Could Involve:

Using another student’s test/exam/quiz and writing down the same answers

Not putting quotation marks around groups of words or full sentences that are not your own.

Copying and pasting sentences or whole paragraphs from an online source, including artificial intelligence, and claiming it as your own words or ideas

Not citing sources of information used in creating assignments in a works cited page

Claiming images, graphs, charts, designs, or any other intellectual property as your own

Getting someone else, including artificial intelligence, to create work for you and claiming it as your own

Fabricating or falsifying data or research and claiming that it is authentic or true

Spending no time engaging with online lesson content

Maintaining Academic Integrity – A Student’s Responsibility

Maintaining academic integrity is an essential responsibility for every student because it ensures that learning is honest, fair, and meaningful. Students are expected to complete and submit their own original work while properly acknowledging the ideas, words, and contributions of others, including sources such as books, peers, and artificial intelligence. Breaches of academic integrity undermine the purpose of education and prevent genuine learning. It is the student’s responsibility to understand academic integrity expectations to ensure that all submitted work is authentic and original. In doing so, students develop both integrity and accountability that will benefit them throughout their academic and personal lives. Students in breach of SCIDES’ academic integrity policy and found guilty of academic dishonesty face consequences.

Penalties for Academic Dishonesty

SCIDES’ Academic Integrity policy follows a ‘three-step’ approach, with actions and consequences in each level of offence progressing in severity as follows:

First Step	Work not accepted Teacher connects with the student regarding academic dishonesty and provides opportunity for the student to address the issue. A student’s refusal to address the issue with the teacher is accepted as an admission of guilt and an advancement to step 2 or 3 will happen. Parents (of school aged students) may be notified at teachers’ discretion. The teacher can escalate to steps 2 and/or 3 at their discretion and at any point
Second Step	Automatic and permanent zero on work. Parents (of school aged students) notified. Teachers of students’ other SCIDES courses notified. SCIDES Principal notified. Note in student’s permanent file. Mandatory meeting with teacher via video conference to discuss academic integrity. Students must prove authentic ability during this meeting. Student refusal or avoidance of meeting is accepted as an admission of guilt; discipline progresses to third step. The teacher can escalate to step 3 at their discretion and at any point
Third Step	Automatic failure of course. Full program review initiated Potential discipline in other SCIDES courses. Potential removal from SCIDES school.