Scholastic Honesty
Scholastic honesty in students, faculty and staff requires the pursuit of scholarly activity that is free from fraud, deception and unauthorized collaboration with other individuals. The University holds students individually responsible for understanding and exercising standards of scholastic honesty in every aspect of study and in all work submitted. Various methods of plagiarism detection may be used by any faculty member in any City University of Seattle course.
Definitions
City University of Seattle defines violations of scholastic honesty broadly as any act that constitutes cheating or misrepresentation of the actual author of one’s work. Violations of scholastic honesty include, but are not limited to, the following examples.
1. Cheating:
- Using unauthorized materials such as books or notes to answer examination questions.
- Copying another student’s homework, written assignments, examination answers, electronic media, or other data.
- Assisting or allowing someone else to cheat.
2. Plagiarism:
- Presenting another person’s work as your own.
- Paraphrasing or condensing ideas from another person’s work without proper citation.
- Failing to document direct quotations with a proper citation.
- Word-for-word copying, use of select phrases from another’s work or simply failing to properly cite all sources from which data, examples, ideas, words, or theories are found.
3. Other forms of scholastic dishonesty:
- Changing examination solutions after the fact, inventing, changing or falsifying data or research.
- Reproducing or duplicating images, designs, or web pages without giving credit to the developer, artist, or designer.
- Submitting work created for another course without prior approval from the instructor.
- Misrepresenting oneself or one’s circumstance to gain an unfair advantage.
- Collaborating with another person(s) without prior approval from the instructor.
- Selling or providing term papers, course work, or assignments to other City University of Seattle students and/or to 3rd parties outside the institution knowing that the intention is to plagiarize.
- Bribing or attempting to bribe an instructor.
The University is committed to an educational approach to violations of scholastic honesty. Instructors are encouraged to seek guidance from course managers or a primary supervisor when they discover possible plagiarism to discuss how best to handle individual cases.
An instructor or staff member may file a formal Violation of Scholastic Honesty Allegation by following the instructions found in the Faculty Handbook or the City University of Seattle Catalog for the current academic year. The Scholastic Honesty Board will be convened and a review of the allegation will commence in a fair and impartial manner. A student may not withdraw from a course after being informed that a scholastic honesty allegation has been filed for that course, whether the communication was by letter, email, or some other means.
Violation Sanctions
In cases where a violation is found to have occurred, disciplinary actions may include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:
- Issuance of a 0.0 for the assignment or examination;
- Issuance of a 0.0 for the course grade;
- Academic suspension for one or more quarters;
- Dismissal from the University.
The student will be notified in writing of the Board’s decision. If the allegation was filed by an instructor, the instructor will be notified in writing as well.
Student’s Right to Appeal
Students may appeal the Board’s decision within ten days to the Provost whose decision is final.