At Eastern Connecticut State University, we value personal integrity as fundamental to our interactions with each other. We place special weight on academic honesty in all of our intellectual pursuits because it is a value fundamental to academic life and scholarly practice. All members of the University community are obligated to uphold high standards of academic honesty in their scholarship and learning, and this obligation extends to students. Therefore, we expect students to take personal responsibility for their intellectual work and to respect and acknowledge the ideas of others. Academic honesty means doing one’s own work and giving proper credit to others whose work and thought are drawn upon. It is the responsibility of each student to become familiar with what constitutes academic dishonesty and plagiarism, and to avoid all forms of cheating and plagiarism. In an effort to assist students in this understanding, faculty are encouraged to include in their syllabi a statement regarding academic misconduct and the possible sanctions that may result from violations of this policy. Students may not engage in any form of academic misconduct, and are responsible for learning how to present the ideas of others in their own work, and avoid all other forms of academic misconduct. For current documentation practices, consult the instructor or a style manual.

The CSUS Code of Conduct, Policies, Procedures, & Statements, defines academic misconduct as including, but not limited to, providing or receiving assistance in a manner not authorized by the instructor in the creation of work to be submitted for academic evaluation, including papers, projects, and examinations (cheating); and presenting as one’s own, the ideas or words of another person or persons for academic evaluation without proper acknowledgment (plagiarism). Academic misconduct may take many forms. It includes, but is not limited to, the following actions unless such actions are explicitly authorized by the instructor:

Examinations:

Copying from another person’s paper or receiving any unauthorized assistance in taking examinations or any other form of academic evaluation (i.e. tests, quizzes, etc.);

Knowingly allowing another person to copy from one’s own examination or any other form of academic evaluation;

Use of unauthorized materials or devices during an examination or any other form of academic evaluation (i.e. use of signals, notes or additional materials such as books, calculators, or other electronic devices) during an examination when the instructor has not approved their use;

Giving or receiving unauthorized information prior to, during, or after an examination;

Use of another person as a substitute, or acting as a substitute for another person, in any form of academic evaluation (i.e. a student may not have another person take an examination for them);
The acquisition or distribution of improperly acquired examinations or other forms of academic evaluation (i.e. stealing examinations before the test period or taking a copy of an examination from a testing room without the permission of the instructor). Examinations which have been provided by an instructor are legitimate study tools.

Improper Behavior:

Unauthorized collaboration in the preparation of materials to be submitted for academic evaluation (i.e. working with another student on an assignment when the instructor has not explicitly authorized working together);

Submission of the same work, or substantially similar work, in more than one course without prior consent of the evaluating instructors in all courses;

Disruptions in classrooms, labs, or research and study areas; any conduct or actions that grossly or persistently interfere with the academic process. (See the Student Code of Conduct and Statement of Judicial Procedures, Prohibited Conduct No. 2.)

Theft, alteration, or destruction of the academic work of other members of the community or of the educational resources, materials, or official documents of the University.

Students who witness any act of academic misconduct by other students are required to inform the faculty member of that misconduct.

Falsification or Misuse of Academic Information:

Falsification or misrepresentation of one’s own academic record or that of anyone else (i.e. altering a transcript for admission, hacking into the University’s computer system for any reason, having another student take an examination in one’s place, or signing someone else’s name on an attendance sheet);

Unauthorized use of information in University computer records or the computer files of other students (see Computer Use Policy);

Using unauthorized materials or fabricated data in an academic exercise (i.e. falsifying data in a research paper or laboratory activity; conducting research on human or animal subjects without approval by the appropriate panel or supervisor).

Plagiarism:

Copying sentences, phrases, paragraphs, tables, figures or data directly or in slightly modified form from a book, article, internet site or other published or unpublished source, or adapting the ideas of another authority without following acceptable forms of citation (i.e. quotation marks, endnotes, footnotes, parenthetical notes, and/or other contextual information);
Using or buying a paper written by someone else for the purpose of turning it in as one’s own work;

Selling or lending papers for the purpose of violating academic misconduct policies. (This may also be a criminal offense, see Connecticut General Statutes: 953-392a);

Submission of the same work, or substantially similar work, in more than one course without the consent of the evaluating instructors in all courses;

Citing a work that has been referenced in another work without actually consulting the original piece directly;

Fabrication or alteration of data.

When any material is borrowed from another person, the source must be cited according to some academically accepted standard (i.e. APA, MLA, etc.). There are three ways in which other writers’ materials may appear in the work of another:

1. by putting quotation marks around short passages that are borrowed verbatim (word for word) or by setting off from the text, without quotation marks, longer quotations (more than three sentences).
2. by précis (i.e. condensing part of a writer’s argument).
3. by paraphrase (i.e. interpretation of a writer’s ideas).

All three must be acknowledged formally, either in the text or with footnotes, according to the style required by the instructor.