Cheating and plagiarism

Earning your grade
You are expected to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding to earn grades. The grade you earn in class, whether an online class or a face-to-face class, is used to demonstrate your competency in the course. Graded work is for the instructor to assess how well you are doing in the course by seeing your knowledge and understanding of the material. By submitting work that is not your own, these objectives are not achieved, and you are deceiving the instructor as to your competence in the course.  Any form of misrepresenting your knowledge, understanding, and/or competency in any graded test/assignment is considered cheating. This includes, but is not limited to, copying/pasting/typing correct answer feedback from previous attempts of online tests where you have reviewed the questions, typing up word-for-word from Dr Hollier’s lecture notes or a text book, or googling questions and copying/pasting/typing answers from online. If you do this then you have only demonstrated that you can copy and paste, and not that you have understood and learned the course material. Working on assignment(s), test(s), quiz(zes) as a group or having someone else complete assignment(s), test(s), quiz(zes) for you is not allowed (any group work will explicitly state that in the syllabus; no statement under an assignment, test, or quiz category means it is individual work). Sharing your work, including, but not limited to, showing other students your work as an ex example, is not allowed. This is not acceptable. You are NOT allowed to take pictures or images of tests in any way or form. This includes, but not limited to, during the test and when reviewing tests. You are not allowed to write down test questions. You can review test questions in iCollege, but you are not allowed to keep copy in any form. Making a copy of any test question in any form (known or unknown) is considered cheating. It is not acceptable to give someone else your work to look at or look at someone else’s work on any assignment (such as lab reports), whether you have finished this course or are in this course. You write the assignment yourself, not look at what someone else did and then make changes. Using a service, including, but not limited to, groupme, where you share information about tests and/or assignments is considered cheating. A grade of zero will be given for the entire test or assignment, and this zero grade will not be dropped when your lowest graded item grade is dropped. These are just a few examples of cheating, any form of deceiving the instructor about your knowledge, understanding, and/or competency on graded work is cheating and will result in zero grades for that work and the other penalties listed in the cheating/plagiarism section can and will also be applied. Dr Hollier can ask you to explain the content of any work you submit for a grade and if you fail to be able to explain what you submitted you can face the penalties for cheating / plagiarism. For more information on cheating and plagiarism see the sections in the syllabus referring to each graded assignment, assessed work, plagiarism, and cheating/plagiarism, and any other applicable sections in this syllabus.

Ethics, Morals, and Honesty

Ethics can be defined as the moral principles of an individual that relate to how they behave or conduct an activity. Morals can be defined as the beliefs and/or standards that a person finds as acceptable to do. Honesty can be defined as being truthful and/or not being deceitful. Dr Hollier expects all students to be honest and have good morals and ethics in relation to only submitting assignments that they have created on their own. Any form of deceiving Dr Hollier in relation to your knowledge, understanding, and/or competency in this course is considered dishonest, unethical, and immoral. Being dishonest, unethical, and/or immoral will result in charges of cheating and/or plagiarism.

Assessed work

Any assessed work that is submitted needs to be correctly referenced. Correct referencing includes correctly citing references during the text, a reference section at the end of the work citing where the information came from, and the correct use of quotations around the quotes that you have referenced (see reference section for more information). THE ONLY ITEMS YOU CAN QUOTE INCLUDE: OPINIONS, DIRECTIONS OF USE, AND GOVERNMENTAL AND/OR OFFICIAL STATEMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN RELEASED BY A GOVERNMENT OR ORGANIZATION. Examples of what you cannot quote include (but not limited to): factual information, information provided by your instructor, information from text books, the internet, laboratory manuals, journals, periodicals, magazines, any other source of published or web posted information, any other source of media (TV, radio, podcasts, or any other source of media type), other students work (past or present classes), your own work from previous classes (you MUST do new work, and CANNOT submit work you previously submitted in any other class). This is information that you read, learn, and then process yourself into your own work. Paraphrasing by changing a few words here and there, or changing every other word, is not acceptable. The purpose of assessed work is that you do the work yourself, and it represents your own work and your competency in the subject (not your competency to use a thesaurus, change some words, or cut and paste). You cannot copy from other students, work together to create two different pieces of work, or plagiarize anyone else’s work from the class, different classes, or anywhere else (see cheating and plagiarism section of syllabus). You CANNOT submit any work of your own that you have already submitted in a previous class (either a previous class of mine, with another instructor at Perimeter College, or with another instructor at any other institution). If you do submit previous work of your own, you will be considered to have plagiarized your work and cheated by not doing the work again as is required, and will result in the same consequences as cheating / plagiarizing from other sources. If you quote material that you are not allowed to quote, then you will be subject to the consequences listed under “Cheating and Plagiarism” in this syllabus. There will be NO exceptions to this rule, there is no valid excuse for plagiarism. All assessed work must be correctly referenced throughout the assignment AND at the end of the assignment within a “References” section (see reference section in this syllabus).

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious academic offense and is unacceptable. Graded work is for the instructor to assess how well you are doing in the course by seeing your knowledge and understanding of the material. By submitting work that is not your own, these objectives are not achieved, and you are deceiving the instructor as to your competence in the course. The following are categories of plagiarism as defined by www.turnitin.com. You still must follow the information listed in the “assessed work” section, “references” section, “scientific research paper references” section, “turnitin.com” section, and all other sections of this syllabus.

• Clone— An act of submitting another’s work, word-for-word, as one’s own..
• CTRL-C— A written piece that contains significant portions of text from a single source without alterations.
• Find-Replace— The act of changing key words and phrases but retaining the essential content of the source in a paper.
• Remix— An act of paraphrasing from other sources and making the content fit together seamlessly.
• Recycle— The act of borrowing generously from one’s own previous work without citation; To self plagiarize.
• Hybrid— The act of combining perfectly cited sources with copied passages—without citation—in one paper.
• Mashup— A paper that represents a mix of copied material from several different sources without proper citation.
• 404 Error— A written piece that includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information about sources.
• Aggregator— The “Aggregator” includes proper citation, but the paper contains almost no original work.
• Re-Tweet— This paper includes proper citation, but relies too closely on the text’s original wording and/or structure.

Contract cheating

Contract cheating, as described by www.plagiarism.org, is “Paying someone to write your paper, whether it’s a fellow student or an essay mill, is a form of plagiarism and is usually considered one of the most serious by teachers and administrators alike.” Contract cheating also occurs if you pay someone to take a test for you. Contract cheating is a form of misrepresenting your knowledge, understanding, and/or competency on an assignment(s) and is deceiving your instructor of your abilities and competencies in the course. Graded work is for the instructor to assess how well you are doing in the course by seeing your knowledge and understanding of the material. By submitting work that is not your own, these objectives are not achieved, and you are deceiving the instructor as to your competence in the course.

Turnitin.com

This class will use turnitin.com, a plagiarism prevention site, for some assessed work. However, any assessed work may be sent by the instructor to turnitin.com. Any work submitted in the form of lab reports, essays, etc. (as directed by the instructor) will be submitted online to www.turnitin.com by the student. Students will upload appropriate assignments into the ASSIGNMENTS tab of iCollege. This will automatically send it to Turnitin for analysis. ALL WORK SUBMITTED TO TURNITIN.COM WILL BE PLACED INTO THE REPOSITORY AT TURNITIN SO THAT IT CAN BE CHECKED AGAINST OTHER PAPERS/ASSIGNMENTS FOR PLAGIARISM (PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE). Only upload your file, do not copy and paste the file in to turnitin. If you copy and paste your assignment in to turnitin then all formatting and tables will be removed and your submitted work will not have the correct formatting. You will lose formatting points this way that will not be credited back.You must submit the file in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx format). Files submitted in other formats (such as .pages or .pdf) will result in a zero score for formatting in the grading rubric. After submission, you will receive a receipt after submission of an assessment. Ensure that you print this receipt as this is proof of your submission in case something goes wrong. When you upload your work you MUST check your work on the preview (confirmation) page to ensure that the entire work is present (not checking and only part of your work being submitted will be the work that is graded, you will not be allowed to resubmit). The preview removes images and other formatting (including table format). As such, you are responsible for ensuring all your text is present. You will only be allowed to upload your work once, THE FIRST SUBMISSION IS THE FINAL SUBMISSION (there are NO exceptions to this rule), so make sure your work is complete and is your final version. This policy is here to ensure you do not plagiarize from the start of the assignment. You CANNOT submit work to see if you would get caught, then change it if a section is highlighted by turntiin, to get around plagiarism. You cannot submit an assignment and then decide that you did not want to submit the assignment as you were caught plagiarizing on that assignment. Any work that is submitted to turnitin.com will be graded using grademark on turnitin. The grade(s) for the assignment(s) and comments from the instructor can be accessed by clicking on the assignment on Turnitin. It is your responsibility to check your grade and to any the comments. 

Lockdown Browser with a webcam is required for all appropriate assignments in iCollege

• Most assignments in iCollege will require you to use the Respondus Lockdown Browser. A quiz in iCollege titled “Lockdown Browser Test - Requires Respondus Lockdown Browser + Webcam” is available for you to check that the Lockdown browser works on your computer before taking a test. You should take this quiz every time before taking an actual test to ensure all components of the browser are working on your computer (before taking the actual test).
• You must pass the lockdown browser quiz on iCollege with a score of 100% before any others assignments on iCollege will be released and visible to you.
• The lockdown browser will:
• Be used to verify who is taking the assignment. This requires you to have a webcam so you can show your government / Perimeter College photo ID and your face at the start of each assignment. This is to ensure that you are the actual person taking the assignment and that it is not someone else taking the assignment for you. Once you have verified your identity, closing the lockdown browser and reopening it will result in a grade of zero for that assignment. The webcam may remain recording while you take the entire assignment. The Perimeter College account holder must maintain password security and not share his or her login information with anyone; including spouses, parents, friends, or family. Allowing someone other than the registered student to access this iCollege class for any reason is considered cheating and a violation of the Perimeter College Academic Honesty Policy. The first occasion a student violates these rules will result in Dr Hollier selecting the option to send that student to the expulsion panel immediately and an immediate F in the course – absolutely no exceptions.
• Prevent you from opening other windows, browsers, and files on that computer while taking the assignment. This will prevent direct copying and pasting answers on the assignment. Any form of copying and pasting of answers, even if using other computers and typing what you read, is still cheating.
• Students must also show valid ID and take a picture of their face with the webcam. Students are not allowed to cover up the webcam to prevent the assignment being recorded. Students must perform the environment check to show what is around them during the assignment. Any assignment where the identity of the student is not clear, an official ID card is not shown during the test setup, an environment check is inadequately performed, or the student is not visible in the recording will be graded as a zero score. If this is done more than once, then in addition to the zero score, the student will be written up for academic dishonesty.
• When you open the quiz in iCollege can download the Lockdown Browser if you have not done so previously.
• If you do not have a webcam on your computer, then you must arrange to come to the college and take the assignment on a Perimeter College computer. The laptops loaned out by the library at Perimeter College campuses to be used within thelibrary have both the lockdown browser installed and a webcam. These have been tested and work with the lockdown browser with webcam. Not all Perimeter College computers have webcams.
• If you have problems installing the Lockdown browser on your computer, then you must also come to the college to take the tests as described above.
• You must perform the environment check to show what is around you. Failure to show what is in the environment around your computer will result in a zero grade for the entire assignment.
• An adequate environment check means showing me what is within reach of you. That means the tabletop surface or wherever your computer/laptop is sitting.
• Tests are open book, so I expect to see your text book and notes.
• Other electronic devices are allowed, but cannot be used to google questions and copy answers from. They can be used to lookup definitions of words you do not understand. They can be used to access the eText if that is your book.
• If you use a second electronic device during the assignment for an open book assignment (see below), you MUST show the camera what was on the screen of that device. Hold it there for at least 10 seconds. That does not mean you can google the question, read an answer, then lookup something else and show me the second thing but not the first! When you finishing typing you must show me the screen of the second device immediately. If you start typing again / pressing buttons without showing me the screen then I will assume you are cheating.
• You should NOT be getting up and moving off screen during an assignment. If an emergency occurs and you have to get up and leave, then you must do an environment check again when you return by showing the area around you. Do not stop the assignment, just show the environment by moving the camera. You will lose time if you get up from the assignment for any reason.
• You are NOT allowed to take pictures or images of tests in any way or form. This includes, but not limited to, during the test, and when reviewing tests. You are not allowed to write down test questions. You can review test questions in iCollege, but you are not allowed to keep a copy in any form. Making a copy of any test question in any form (known or unknown) is considered cheating.
• You are not allowed to leave the view of the webcam and/or talk to anyone else while taking a test or quiz that requires the Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitor.
• If you have technical issues while taking a test / quiz using the Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitor, then you will be required to take all tests on a Perimeter College campus using the Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitor on a GSU computer provided for student use.

Online assignments are open book, unless specifically stated as closed book in the syllabus and/or class schedule.

• For open book assignments:
• I know students have the textbook and notes in front of them when taking online assignment. These assignments have been designed to allow for that, if the assignment is not listed as closed book in the syllabus and/or schedule. You can have notes and the textbook with you and look things up if the assignment is an open book assignment. The timing of the assignment will prevent you from doing that for everything.
• If you are using an e-text or e-notes, that is fine to use while taking the open book assignments. You are also allowed to look up terms that you are not familiar with online. The lockdown browser locks that computer, so to do any of these options would require a second electronic device.
• It is not acceptable to google questions and then copy answers over for any type of assignment (see “Earning your grade” section).
• For closed book assignments:
• You are not allowed any books, notes, recordings, and/or any type of information to be accessible that is not coming directly from your brain. During the environment check you must show that nothing is accessible.
• If you have accommodations for a disability, then you are allowed anything that matches the requirements on the accommodation form sent from Disability Services.
• It is not acceptable to google questions and then copy answers over for any type of assignment (see “Earning your grade” section).