Academic Integrity

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What resources are available to promote academic integrity within my course?

• Include an academic integrity statement in your outline. Our course outline template already includes the statement for you to use. Your outline should also specify the consequences for violations, including both cheating and plagiarism. 
• Discuss the expectations and consequences for violations with the class. Make sure students understand what kind of collaboration is acceptable in your course and how to record that in the work they submit. 
• The Tompkins Cortland Library has developed a guide to support faculty in recognizing and combatting plagiarism, including resources for teaching students about plagiarism and citations. 
• The College does not consider "misuse of a source" to be plagiarism. You may still impose a penalty for misuse of a source, such as within a rubric or grading criteria for an assignment, but this is distinct from your academic integrity policy. 
• Work with our librarians to help your students develop information literacy. Our librarians are available to provide instruction to you or your class on plagiarism, as well as locating, evaluating, and using information sources; some lessons are already available online. 
• Though not specifically about plagiarism, our Library has a wealth of resources to assist with research assignments, including citation guides and course-specific research guides (contact the library to tailor a guide to your class). 
• Use Turnitin to review your students' assignments. Turnitin is a tool designed to check written work for plagiarism, as well as originality (including use of AI). 

What do I do if I believe a student violated the College's academic integrity policy within my course?

Per our College's Violation of Academic Integrity Policy, if you are issuing a penalty to a student for violating the academic integrity policy, please file a report with the College Provost in a timely manner. The Provost may make recommendations or issue additional consequences. Students may challenge the decision via email to the Provost within two weeks of notification of the penalty; the Provost will then conduct an independent review. 

The College does not consider "misuse" of a source to be plagiarism; therefore, such instances are not a violation of academic integrity. That said, the instructors may still have grading penalties for misuse of a source, such as within a rubric or grading criteria for an assignment. The Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) goes into detail describing the distinction. Per the WPA, "A student who attempts (even if clumsily) to identify and credit his or her source, but who misuses a specific citation format or incorrectly uses quotation marks or other forms of identifying material taken from other sources, has not plagiarized. Instead, such a student should be considered to have failed to cite and document sources appropriately."