Academic Dishonesty

Instructional Policy on Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty includes cheating and plagiarism. Cheating is the unauthorized use of assistance with intent to deceive an instructor or any other individual responsible for evaluating a student’s work. The following are examples of unethical actions:

1. Submission of any materials not prepared by students but presented as their own.
2. The unauthorized possession and/or use of notes, books or the soliciting of assistance from another student during an examination.
3. Illegitimate possession or distribution of examinations, test materials, and/or answer keys to tests and examinations.

Plagiarism refers to the use of another person’s work without giving proper credit to that person. A student must give proper credit through the use of appropriate citation format when (a) copying verbatim another person’s work (e.g., words, phrases, sentences or entire passages); (b) paraphrasing another person’s work (i.e., borrowing but rewording that person’s facts, opinions or ideas); and (c) summarizing another’s work (i.e., use of one’s own words to condense longer passages into a sentence or two).

Consequence of Academic Dishonesty

When dishonesty is evident, the following minimum sanctions will be applied:

1. First offense: The student may receive an F or Zero as the grade for the assignment. In addition, the first incident may result in the loss of testing privileges in the Learning Resource Center for the current and next semester in which the student is enrolled in the college. The student’s name is added to the college wide academic dishonesty database by the dean of instruction.
2. Second offense: The student may receive an F for the course and may be expelled from the class. A second offense may also result in permanent loss of testing privileges in the Learning Resource Center.
3. Third offense: The student may receive an F for the course and may be expelled from the college.

Procedures for Reporting Alleged Dishonesty

1. The Instructor or Testing Proctor who suspects a student of dishonesty must notify the student as quickly as possible after the alleged infraction. The Instructor or Testing Proctor will collect all pertinent materials. The Testing Proctor will not make any decisions regarding the suspected dishonesty incident but will report it to the Instructor. The Instructor will discuss the suspected incident with the Division Chair. If the Instructor and Chair jointly decide that there is sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation, the Chair will report the incident to the appropriate Dean of Instruction.
2. A student may appeal the cheating allegation according to the CCA Policy Procedure entitled Student Academic Appeals.