Oswego Academic Integrity Policy

Preamble

At the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego, the College), academic integrity on the part of all students, faculty, and staff is essential to individual growth and development, and the overall health of our campus community. When academic dishonesty occurs, it has a negative effect on individual success and devalues the education process and academic environment as a whole. Failure to adhere to the standards of academic integrity affects not just individual students but entire courses and the institution as a whole.

Any form of academic dishonesty is a serious concern, and as such, students who are found to have violated this policy may be subject to penalties including, but not limited to, reductions of assignment grades, failure of courses, notations on official transcripts, and suspension or expulsion from the College.

Statement on Academic Integrity

At SUNY Oswego, we are committed to maintaining rigorous intellectual standards and the highest level of academic integrity. As leaders and role models, faculty and professional staff must adhere to the highest standards of academic integrity in scholarship and professional practice. The College endeavors to foster an environment and culture in which students adhere to these same standards that will extend beyond their time at SUNY Oswego.

Academic integrity at SUNY Oswego is guided by the following three principles:

1. all members of the College community should be held to the highest standards of academic integrity and personal responsibility;
2. expectations for academic integrity should be clearly articulated, as should the consequences for violation of these standards; and
3. all members of the College community are entitled to due process when their academic integrity is called into question.

Definitions of Plagiarism, Fabrication or Falsification, Cheating, and Copyright Violation

Acts of academic dishonesty can take many forms. Examples include, but are not limited to: 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the practice of deliberately or inadvertently taking someone else’s work or ideas, in part or in full, and passing them off as one’s own, in text or other mediums. Plagiarism of any kind, including taking from either published or unpublished material, is contrary to established ethical practices. All members of the College are expected to acknowledge the intellectual work of others. In some cases, plagiarism may also involve copyright violations (see Copyright Violation). 

Intentional Plagiarism

Intentional plagiarism is the deliberate act of representing the words, ideas, or data of someone else as your own without providing proper attribution to the author.

Inadvertent Plagiarism

Inadvertent plagiarism involves the non-deliberate use of someone else’s words, ideas, or data without proper attribution. Inadvertent plagiarism usually results from a failure to follow established rules for documenting sources or from simply being careless in research and writing. However, as this is a failure in doing one’s due diligence, academic penalties may be applied even in the case of inadvertent plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism

Self-plagiarism is a unique type of plagiarism that may not be immediately apparent. Self-plagiarism is when prior portions, or the entirety, of a student’s own previous work is presented as new, original work. This covers the submission of the same work in multiple courses, and the re-submission of previous work in the same class. Unlike intentional and inadvertent plagiarism, this behavior may be allowable with the permission of the instructor. If a student has permission to reuse work, they should cite the original authors, not their own prior work.

Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to:

• copying word-for-word from sources without acknowledgment; 
• citing work from sources, but doing so incorrectly;
• restating or rewording of material without acknowledgment (N.B. The purpose of paraphrasing is to enhance clarity. It does not just involve minor shifts in wording, and still requires acknowledgment);
• blending your own ideas with those from another source without acknowledgment;
• planning to commit an act of plagiarism; and
• committing self-plagiarism without permission.

Fabrication or Falsification

Fabrication or falsification is a form of academic dishonesty in which someone invents or distorts the origin or content of information cited.

Examples of fabrication or falsification include but are not limited to:

• citing a source that does not exist; 
• misrepresenting having conducted interviews in research or journalism or misrepresenting the content of interviews;
• attributing ideas and information not included in the source;
• citing a source as supporting a position it does not support;
• citing a source that does not appear in the reference list;
• listing a source in the citations/bibliography section which was not utilized in preparing the work;
• intentionally distorting the meaning or applicability of data;
• inventing data or statistical results;
• feigning an illness or other event to delay an exam or assignment;
• changing or altering grades or other official educational records, such as adjusting already submitted or graded work, or adjusting community and internship work hours; 
• misrepresenting identity on an exam, assignment or attendance activity; and
• planning to commit an act of fabrication or falsification.

Cheating 

Cheating is an attempt to use unfair means to gain an advantage during an examination or on an assignment which gives the appearance of having the knowledge or a skill that an individual has not actually obtained. 

• Examples of cheating include but are not limited to:
• copying from another person’s work from an examination or an assignment;
• allowing someone to copy from an examination or an assignment;
• using unauthorized materials such as cheat sheets, smartphones, solutions manuals, test bank solutions, etc.;
• collaborating on an examination or assignment without approval from the instructor;
• obtaining, purchasing, selling or sharing exams, assignments or answers to assessments;
• working on an examination or assignment beyond time limits;
• planning to cheat.

Copyright Violation

Copyright is a form of intellectual property law that protects original works of authorship including, but not limited to: texts, images, photographs, illustrations, sound recordings, dramatic works, music, and video. The copyright holder is guaranteed the exclusive rights to perform, display, reproduce, and distribute the work as well as to make derivative works. Currently, these rights are protected for the life of the author plus 70 years. Copyright violations occur either when one uses media in websites, blog posts, videos, papers, etc. without securing permission (usually in the form of a license) for the specific use or when the use does not fall under the “fair use” clause of copyright law. Many classroom uses of copyrighted materials fall under fair use, but not all (see Penfield Library’s guide to fair use for specific details).

Examples of copyright violation include, but are not limited to:

• uploading course materials provided by instructors, including assignment sheets and study guides, to websites like Chegg.com and Coursehero.com; 
• using a photograph made by a professional photographer without the license or permission to do so, even it it is of yourself, and even if it is on your public facing personal website or social media account;
• including an illustration with a Creative Commons BY license in a presentation without including attribution;
• staging a public performance without the appropriate permissions including royalties and licenses, etc.
• sharing copyrighted material (such as videos or music) on a site such as YouTube, Vimeo, or peer-to-peer networks;
• creating and distributing t-shirts with a meme that you found online without the appropriate permission/license; and
• downloading a copy of a font installed on a lab computer to use on a personal computer.

Faculty, Student, and Staff Responsibilities

Faculty, students, and staff have a shared responsibility to maintain academic integrity, which includes being knowledgeable of SUNY Oswego’s policy and reporting incidents. Information regarding the prevention of academic dishonesty is available through Penfield Library.  All members of the campus community are required to abide by the Academic Integrity Policies, both as outlined in this document, and in any course specific policies.  It is the responsibility of each student to make a prudent choice when they become aware of a violation. Students are encouraged to report academic dishonesty to the faculty member, their advisor, their associate dean, or to Student Conduct, directly or through the online reporting system.

Instructors are required to include a statement concerning academic integrity in their course syllabus or comparable course information documents, and should provide students with a link to the full policy. Additionally, faculty must note any situations that might be unique to their coursework and are not covered under this policy, and describe how such situations would be handled.

Students are required to familiarize themselves with the policy, and with any additional instructions given by their faculty member.

Potential Penalties for Academic Integrity Violations

Violations of the Academic Integrity Policy can result in substantial penalties. There is, however, an important distinction between academic evaluation (e.g., reduction in grade, additional work) and disciplinary action.

Instructors have the authority to make academic judgments relating to their students’ work, and to make decisions in the interests of furthering their students’ education.

Additionally, the University, acting through its formal processes, may discipline a student. Violations that reach this level require coordination between the faculty member, the Associate Dean, and Student Conduct to ensure students their due process rights.

Levels of Violation

This is a broad framework to assist instructors in determining the severity of a violation of the Policy. Note that which Level a violation falls into may depend on the level of a course. For example, omitting a citation in a 100 level course may only be a Level 0, but doing the same in a graduate level course may be a Level 1 violation.

Level 0 - This represents a minor error that has no, or a minor academic penalty, and is usually considered a learning experience.  A common example of this might include editorial errors such as incomplete quotations and forgetting to properly reference material from a cited source. These should still be reported even if no action is taken so that potential patterns of similar behavior will become apparent.

Level 1 - This represents a substantial violation of the policy, but is still generally an unintentional error, possibly reflecting a more serious misunderstanding of the policy and related requirements. Examples of Level 1 violations might be substantial but unintentional citation errors, or submitting work completed in one course to satisfy an assignment in another course.  This may also be used for repeated Level 0 violations within the same course.

Level 2 - This represents an unintentional, but major violation of the policy, or a violation that was made intentionally. Generally violations at this level will only directly involve one or two students. This may also be used for repeated Level 1 violations within the same course.  Examples of Level 2 incidents might include:

• feigning illness to avoid an exam
• giving aid on assessment activities without specific permission to do so, or seeking and receiving such aid
• two students sharing research on a single topic to complete individual assignments in different courses
• falsifying attendance (such as signing in for another student who is not present)
• the use of unauthorized notes or other means of cheating on an assessment
• the uploading of general course learning materials (such as course slides) to external websites without explicit permission from the instructor.
• minor plagiarism (one or two short excerpts of improperly cited material), etc.

Level 3 - This represents an egregious violation of the policy that was made intentionally, and/or involved multiple students collaborating to violate the policy. At this level, careful consideration should be given as to whether only an academic penalty is appropriate, or if a case should also be referred to Student Conduct. This may also be used for repeated Level 2 violations within the same course. Examples of Level 3 violations might include:

• major plagiarism, where the majority or entirety of a work having been copied
• the uploading of specific course assessment materials (such as assignments or tests, with or without answers) to external websites without explicit permission from the instructor.
• the purchasing of any materials for submission as your own work (including the purchase of exam keys)
• the sale of work for others to submit as their own (even if the sale is to students that are not part of SUNY Oswego)
• identity falsification for the purposes of completing assessments (such as having someone take an exam in one’s place or vice versa)
• stealing academically related materials (such as stealing a copy of test key from an instructor or stealing another student’s work out of a dropbox for the purpose of copying it or submitting it as the student’s own work)
• working with one or more other students with the intention of violating this policy (such as multiple students meeting as a group to work on a take home exam without instructor permission to collaborate)
• altering/forging college documents or records 

Penalties for Violations  

Faculty should refer to the following Rubric in determining an appropriate level of sanction depending on the severity of the violation of the policy. If a faculty member wishes to take action outside of these recommendations, they should provide an explanation for the deviation in their Academic Integrity Violation Incident Report report.

Additional Actions Related to Violations

Separately from the Violation Process within a course, whenever a Violation is entered into the University System, a check will be made to see if the student has any previously recorded violations. The Associate Dean of the student’s home school will be notified of any repeated violations and may initiate additional actions, including but potentially not limited to the following:

1. If the student has no prior violations recorded, a record of the violation is retained by the University. This information will not be shared outside of the University.
2. If the student has more than one level zero violation, a letter of warning will be issued to the student, including a recommendation to campus resources.
3. If this is the student’s first violation of the Policy, and the instructor has determined that the penalty will result in a Reduction of Assessment or Course Grade, the violation is reported for record retention and a letter of warning will be issued to the student, including a recommendation to campus resources.
4. If this is the student’s second violation of the Policy and the instructor has determined that the penalty will result in a Reduction of Assessment or Course Grade, the violation is reported for record retention, and direct interventions to remedy the behavior will be mandated.
5. If the Associate Dean determines that there is an ongoing pattern of violations, either at a high or low level, a student will be referred to Student Conduct to address the behavior.

Investigating and Resolving Academic Integrity Violations 

Instructor Procedures

An instructor who suspects a student of academic dishonesty should observe the following process:

1. The instructor should work to gather information and evidence related to the suspected incident. The student does not need to be notified at this stage, but all relevant material should be gathered and maintained until the matter is resolved.
2. Upon gathering evidence, if the instructor determines that evidence supports that a violation has occurred, they should send a request to meet with the student via Oswego email. The meeting should be prompt, private, and informal. If at all possible, this meeting should be held synchronously (in person or virtual) or via phone conference. The student must be given the opportunity to explain the incident from their perspective prior to a penalty being imposed. Regardless of the means of communication, there is an understanding that the privacy of both parties will be maintained. During these communications, the student and instructor may each choose to have a witness present for the discussion.
   The instructor is obligated to make a reasonable effort to allow for a student explanation, but if a student is unresponsive to attempts at communication or otherwise is unable or unwilling to provide an explanation, the instructor should proceed to Step 4, and should detail what attempts to contact the student were made.
3. An instructor should evaluate all information obtained, including information shared during the student meeting, against relevant elements of both the academic Integrity Policy and the Course Syllabus to determine if a violation has occurred. If a violation is substantiated, instructors should refer to the Levels of Violation and Penalties for Violations sections of this policy for guidelines on assigning appropriate penalties.
4. Instructors must complete the Academic Integrity Violation Incident Report, which will record as much information about the violation as possible, and the preferred academic penalty.
5. The Academic Integrity Violation Incident Report will be sent to the relevant Department Chair or a person designated by the relevant Associate Dean. A) In the case of a Level 0 to Level 2 Violations that does not result in an Academic Penalty of Immediate Reduction of Final Course Grade to E, the Chair/Designee will review and approve the action.  The Chair/Designee may request to review the incident and penalty with the faculty member prior to approval. B) When a Level 3 Violation is reported, or when a Level 2 Violation results in an Academic Penalty of Immediate Reduction of Final Course Grade to E, the case is automatically elevated to Student Conduct and the Associate Dean for evaluation. The instructor should pause the academic penalty process to coordinate further actions with Student Conduct.
6. For Level 0 to Level 2 Violations that are not elevated, the student will receive written notification detailing the instructor’s findings and the assigned academic penalty.
7. Students may appeal their academic penalties at the end of a semester using the Grades Appeal Process. Once the time for appeal has expired, or an appeal is undertaken and concluded, the process is considered concluded.

Student Conduct Procedures

1. When a Level 3 Violation is reported, or when a Level 2 Violation results in an Academic Penalty of Immediate Reduction of Final Course Grade to E, the case is automatically elevated to Student Conduct and the Associate Dean for evaluation on whether additional action should be taken. The instructor should pause the academic penalty process to coordinate further actions with Student Conduct.
2. Under these conditions, the student is prohibited from withdrawing from the course; a hold is placed on the student’s account until the case is resolved.
3. Student Conduct will initiate the conduct process with instructor and student participation. Once this process is begun, the following forms of resolution are available for the accused student: A) Resolution Agreement: the accused student accepts responsibility for the violation(s), acknowledges their role or involvement in the incident, and waives any rights to contest the allegations or the sanctions. The instructor and the Director of Conduct are not to revisit the question of whether the alleged policy violations occurred, but will consider appropriate sanctions (academic and non-academic) based on the acceptance of responsibility, the nature and severity of the incident and the charge(s) under consideration. The student will have three days to sign a mutual agreement which immediately resolves the violation and voluntarily waives their appeal rights. B) Adjudication: The accused student denies responsibility and chooses to contest the allegations.  The Director of Conduct will refer the case to the appropriate forum of resolution based on the severity of the violation.  The accused student is assumed to be not-responsible concerning the charges which have been leveled against them, and the University bears responsibility to provide convincing evidence. The student is permitted to attend classes and have further work graded until resolution of the matter is final. i) Administrative Conference: The student, instructor, and the Director of Student Conduct convene and discuss the circumstances surrounding the incident; sanctions from this conference will not rise above disciplinary probation and the student receives an XE grade on their transcript. If the student disagrees with the academic penalty, they may request an appeal through the grades appeal policy, potentially on an accelerated timeline. ii) Hearing: If the nature of the violation could likely result in the suspension or expulsion of the student, a hearing board will convene with the participation of the student and instructor, to determine a final resolution.  If the outcome involves suspension or expulsion, the student may request an appeal through the University’s Conduct Process.

Time Limitations on Pursuing Violations

Upon the discovery of a suspected academic integrity violation, an instructor should take action as soon as possible. There is no official time limit for the discovery of, or penalties related to, an academic integrity violation. However, an instructor should consult the appropriate Associate Dean in the case that the discovery of a suspected violation happens after grades have been submitted and released to the student.

Notations on Student Academic Transcript

XE - A student that has received the academic penalty of Reduction of Final Course Grade to 0/Letter Grade E may have an XE placed on their transcript for the relevant course grade. This indicates that the failing grade was given due to an Academic Integrity Violation.

The XE designation may only be applied by Student Conduct.  If a faculty does not engage with Student Conduct after deciding to give an Immediate Reduction of Final Course Grade to E, the student transcript will only show an E.

Petition for Forgiveness - A student may petition for removal of ‘XE’ on the transcript after two academic semesters of acceptable performance and no further behavioral or academic infractions. Forgiveness will not be considered earlier than one year after the date of adjudication through the conduct process. Expulsion for academic dishonesty will be permanently noted on the student’s transcript.

NR - If the incident occurs and cannot be resolved before grades have to be submitted, a student will be given an NR in the course as a temporary, neutral grade.

Course Withdrawal Policy

Students who are found responsible for a violation of the Academic Integrity Policy and are facing the potential of a failing grade in the course will not be permitted to withdraw from the course in which the violation occurred; a hold is placed on the student’s account until the case is resolved.

Student Appeal Process

All students have the right to appeal if a faculty member assigns an academic penalty the student believes is undeserved by using the Oswego Grade Appeals Process. No additional action will be taken against a student that pursues an appeal:

1. If the academic penalty does not result in the Immediate Reduction of the Final Course Grade to 0/Letter Grade E, a student may appeal after the final course grade is assigned at the end of the semester.
2. If the Immediate Reduction of the Final Course Grade to 0/Letter Grade E penalty is imposed students may begin the Oswego Grade Appeals Process upon receiving notification of the assigned penalty from the University.

If a student chooses to exercise their right to appeal, the Instructor will be notified and the student will be able to attend class and have work graded until the appeals process is concluded.

If a student is referred to Student Conduct in addition to any academic actions, and the outcome involves suspension or expulsion, the student may request an appeal through the University’s Conduct Process.