Research Guides: Academic Integrity Guide with Quizzes: Academic Dishonesty Behaviors

Intellectual Property

What is Intellectual Property?

The World Intellectual Property Organization, defines intellectual property as, “creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.”

According to the Encyclopedia of Law and Higher Education, "Intellectual property includes literary or artistic works, inventions, business methods, industrial processes, logos, and product designs. Nearly every activity engaged in by students, staff, and faculty in colleges and universities involves the production or use of intellectual property. Among the activities involving intellectual property are research projects, books, journal articles, musical compositions, lesson plans, student assignments, speeches and lectures, videos, university Web sites, newspapers, reports, concerts, and plays."

Intellectual property violations in research include:

Not receiving permission to use the intellectual work produced by others
Course assignments and exams are intellectual property and cannot be shared or posted without the permission of the instructor

Plagiarism

According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary plagiarism is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own.”

Plagiarism also means:

submitting exam answers or papers from paid websites such as Chegg is plagiarism if the work is not cited
submitting someone else's work (in whole, part, or paraphrase) as one's own without fully and properly crediting the author
submitting as one's original work materials obtained from an individual or an online source
submitting as one's own original work material that has been produced through unacknowledged collaboration with others

Sometimes plagiarism is accidental. It happens when we are not careful about taking notes and forgetting to cite a source, or failing to include quotations around direct quotes. Even though these actions are unintentional they are still considered plagiarism.

Excerpts from the Academic Honesty section on violations:

Submitting an author’s published or unpublished work (e.g. material from a journal, Internet site, newspaper, encyclopedia), as one’s own in whole, in part, or in paraphrase, without fully and properly crediting the author.

Submitting materials or work obtained from another student, individual, or agency as one's own without full and proper attribution.

Submitting material produced through unacknowledged or unauthorized collaboration with others as one's own.

Cheating

Cheating in academics, according to the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, are “actions on the part of students that violate the explicit rules or commonly accepted norms for examinations or assignments."

The Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology further defines cheating as: “Any intentional action or behavior that: violates the established rules governing the administration of a test or the completion of an assignment; cheating gives one student an unfair advantage over other students on a test or an assignment and decreases the accuracy of the intended inferences arising from a student's performance on a test or an assignment.”

According to Appendix B: Academic Honesty, Section XII. Academic Honesty Violations (pages 38-41), failure to maintain academic honesty is a violation of the Code of Student Conduct.

Excerpts from the Academic Honesty section on violations:

Submitting substantially the same work to more than one course without prior approval from all instructors involved: i.e., dual or multiple submission.

Using any unauthorized material during an examination, such as notes, tests, calculators, cell phones, PDAs, or other electronic or mechanical communication devices. Abuse of cellular devices with photographic capabilities and use of devices for purposes of photographing test questions or other notes and materials are also prohibited.

Obtaining answers to examination questions from another person with or without that person’s knowledge; furnishing answers to examination questions to another student; using or distributing unauthorized copies of or notes from an examination.

Submitting an examination taken by another person as one's own or taking an examination in another person’s place.

Gaining or seeking to gain unauthorized access to, or altering or destroying the paper or electronic files of a student, faculty member, or staff member for the purpose of gaining better academic standing and success.

Failing to adhere to professional standards or ethics of a discipline and/or violating the rules of an agency in the course of completing fieldwork, internship, practicum, student teaching, or clinical placement.

Interfering with an instructor’s ability to evaluate accurately a student’s competence or performance; misleading any person in connection with one’s academic work.

Cheating encompasses these actions:

Buying essays, papers, or exam answers from websites and turning them in as your own
Using internet resources and not citing the information
Submitting written assignments that have been substantially edited by others is over-editing. This means the content has been edited so much that it's no longer "your voice"
Lifting code from the internet
Providing misleading information
Falsifying documents
“Clicking in” other students into classes or online forums
Misrepresenting yourself online or in face-to-face situations
Having another person take placement tests for you

Cheating in Online Courses

Online cheating is another form of plagiarism and includes:

Cutting and pasting someone else's Web work and submitting it as your own
Buying or downloading essays, papers, speeches etc. from the Web and turning them in as your own
Using a device, phone or web conferencing tool such as Zoom during an exam
Collaborating with others online during an exam
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as CHATGPT for assignments or test taking