Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity in the college. All students should act with personal integrity, respect other students' dignity, rights, and property and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their efforts.
Academic integrity includes a commitment not to engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation, or deception. Such acts of dishonesty violate the fundamental ethical principles of the EMS community and compromise the worth of work completed by others.
Please see University Senate Policy 49-20 >>
To protect the rights and maintain the trust of honest students and support appropriate behavior, EMS faculty will regularly communicate high standards of integrity and reinforce them by taking reasonable steps to anticipate and prevent acts of dishonesty in all assignments. At the beginning of each course, the instructor will provide students with a statement clarifying the application of EMS academic integrity policies to that course.
Forms of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to:
In addition, we are particularly concerned about violations of the research integrity of the college, such as all manners of plagiarism, the submission of previous work, the alteration or omission of relevant data, and electronic theft.
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In the event that an academic integrity violation is suspected, the course instructor should speak to the student. If, after this conversation, the instructor believes an academic integrity violation has taken place, they should submit a claim using the online academic integrity application with a recommended academic sanction (e.g., change to grade on the assignment or test) and, if desired, in consultation with the academic integrity committee, recommend a conduct sanction (e.g., a conduct warning whose administration will be determined by the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response).
The instructor submits the academic integrity claim and a five-business-day countdown begins for the student to contest or accept the allegation and/or the sanction. The student responds to the claim by accepting or contesting the allegation, sanction, or both. Failure to respond to the claim within five business days is considered acceptance of the charges and sanctions.
The highest standards of academic integrity are an absolute necessity for the successful pursuit of scholarly activities and research. Any violation of the strictest adherence to honesty in college will not be tolerated and will be evaluated, with an appropriate sanction determined in a timely manner. Typical academic sanctions include a zero on the assignment or examination in question or failure in the course. A more complete list of dishonest acts and suggested academic sanctions may be found in Sanctioning Guidelines for Violations of Academic Integrity, which details the types of academic integrity offenses/academic sanction ranges.
Students may accept or contest the allegation, the recommended sanction(s), or both.
If charges and sanctions are accepted by the student, then only the instructor and the college's academic integrity coordinator are involved in the case, and the instructor-recommended academic sanction is applied. If prior infractions of academic integrity are discovered, and/or the offense is particularly egregious, the case will be referred to the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response with suggested conduct sanctions.
If charges or sanctions are contested, then the college's Academic Integrity Committee will give the student the option of having either a Zoom hearing or a paper review of the case. In its deliberations, the committee may ask for clarifying input from the student and instructor involved in the case; any materials so obtained, as well as the final decision of the committee, will be made part of the record and shared with both parties to the extent allowed by Penn State policy and federal or state laws.
Only evidence directly related to the matter at hand will be considered for review. It is the responsibility of the chairperson of a hearing body to rule on the admissibility of evidence and on relevant and irrelevant matters. The focus of inquiry in disciplinary proceedings shall be whether or not the accused person was in violation of the Code of Conduct. The hearing chair may use his/her discretion to end the hearing at any point.
Those permitted to be present at hearings include only the following:
*The adviser may be any person selected by the student to accompany them in the hearing; the adviser may not speak for the student
A hearing or review may proceed with three to eight committee members present, providing at least one of those present is a student member. One of the members will serve as hearing chair. The official record of the hearing is the written report prepared by the coordinator of the college's Academic Integrity Committee, also in attendance.
The Committee convenes and reviews all evidence, and then speaks with the student and instructor and any other witnesses that may be called. The student arrives first and speaks to the Committee; the Committee may ask questions of the student. Subsequently, the instructor arrives and is given the opportunity to speak to the Committee. The student is invited to ask questions of the instructor. (The instructor will be permitted to ask questions of the Committee, but not the student.) The instructor is thanked and dismissed when there are no more questions. The same procedure is applied to any additional witnesses, who would arrive one at a time. After all witnesses have been dismissed, there is one final opportunity for the student to speak. The student is then dismissed, and the Committee deliberates and votes on responsibility.
The student will be invited to provide an optional statement of defense and be given the opportunity of a hearing. In the event the student does not wish to provide a rebuttal statement or receive a hearing, the evidence in support of the charges will be considered and adjudicated by the Committee.
Should a student request a hearing, and unexpectedly not attend, the evidence in support of the charges will be presented, considered, and adjudicated. The hearing will not be re-scheduled.
Note: The final award of an XF grade, which is a academic sanction, must include the concurrence of the individual course instructor, the Academic Integrity Committee, and the University's Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response. It is assigned by the latter following a review of the case upon the request of the college committee.
The accused student has the right to be assisted by an adviser of his/her choice, who must be a regular administrative official, regular faculty member, or student of the University. As used in this paragraph, the words "regular" shall have the same meaning as defined in Human Resources Policies HR-103. The college does not have an obligation to provide an adviser to the accused student.
The adviser, upon request of the student, may:
The adviser shall not assume responsibility for conducting the defense of the accused student, except that the adviser may assist the student in their opening and closing statements and questioning of witnesses.
The faculty member in whose class or under whose supervision the violation occurred is invited to attend the hearing subsequent to the student’s testimony.
In all instances of graduate student cases or any case in which the person who detects the violation is someone other than the course instructor (e.g., teaching assistant), this person may also serve as a witness, as well as the associate dean for graduate education and research for graduate student cases.
The scope of the testimony will be limited to matters relevant to the charges and the defense of the charges.
The committee, the course instructor, and/or accused student may request the presence or testimony at the hearing of any member of the University community, including the accused person(s). Records or other exhibits may also be requested. In the event any person, including the student charged and/or his/her adviser, will disrupt the hearing, that person will be excluded and the hearing will proceed in his/her absence.
The University has the burden of proof of guilt by a preponderance of the evidence (not beyond a reasonable doubt, as in the courts). Burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence may be understood as more likely than not that a conclusion may be drawn based on the existing relevant and admissible evidence presented at the hearing.
A written report of the original hearing will be made consisting of:
The report will be submitted to the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education for forwarding to the University Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response. Official notice to the student is made by the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. The Registrar places an academic integrity hold for the student/course.
If the committee finds the student not responsible, the matter is closed and no record goes to the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response. The student is free to drop or withdraw from the course.
A new hearing may be granted by the original hearing body only if the sanction is dismissal from the academic program.
Once an academic sanction for the present case has been decided upon, additional sanctions may be added when there is a history of repeated academic integrity violations or if the allegation is egregious. These sanctions depend on the number of prior infractions.
Note: The committee can implement the academic sanction of dismissal from college programs if a student is majoring or minoring in a college program, but only the University can enforce expelling a student from the University. For a committee sanction of dismissal from college programs, the student has the right (and should be informed of this right) to appeal within two weeks to the dean of the college to seek revocation of dismissal from college programs. If no appeal occurs, dismissal from college programs is the final outcome. If appealed within two weeks, the dean or their designee’s ruling within a reasonable period after the appeal is placed is the final outcome. If the committee does not recommend dismissal from college programs but rather a conduct sanction for four infractions, the student will be notified of this outcome as will the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response, which will decide upon the final sanction.
We offer examples in support of the Sanctioning Guidelines, which focus on conduct sanctions, rather than increased academic sanctions, in the case of fewer than three prior violations. Strikingly different scenarios could exist, and the Sanctioning Guidelines need to handle them all.
For example, consider a student found to have one prior for not citing a source appropriately. This could have been due to a lack of knowledge regarding how to cite a source properly. How should this student be sanctioned if they receive a second infraction in a different course for unauthorized collaboration that was the result of not knowing where to draw the line with a lab partner and individual work? To have this second infraction result in an F for the course (i.e., an increased academic sanction), when the proposed sanction for the course at hand was a 0 on the assignment, would not teach the appropriate lesson; it would be neither representative of the student’s performance in the course at hand, nor might it be in line with the Instructor’s desired consequence. The college believes it is better to have this second offense met with a conduct conversation that may or may not result in a conduct warning.
On the other hand, if a student’s academic integrity violation is particularly egregious, the participants in the conduct review may want to recommend that the student be removed from programs in the college even if the student has no or only one or two priors. For severe infractions, such as in this case, or repeated infractions more minor in nature that total four or more in number, the college's Academic Integrity Committee will determine the conduct review recommendation.
No Priors
One or Two Priors
At the current time, a conduct warning is not reported by the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response to entities outside the University unless the student requests a full disclosure (e.g., for a law school application). Conduct probation (and any sanction above this level) is reported.
Three or More Priors 1
Instructor notified of final academic sanction outcome and academic sanction is imposed; Coordinator shares information with college's Academic Integrity Committee; a majority vote will determine which of the below is/are requested:
The Coordinator sends a letter to the student to let them know of additional recommended conduct sanctions; the Coordinator contacts the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response with a request to implement the recommended conduct sanctions.
Notes
1The Conduct Review Subcommittee reserves the right—in consultation with the course Instructor if appropriate—to pursue any particularly egregious case, irrespective of the existence of priors, at the “Three or more” level for review by the college's Academic Integrity Committee. Note that University practice is not to suspend or expel a student with no priors.
2Note that only Expulsion is permanent; all other conduct sanctions are in place for a specified amount of time.
