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Academic honesty: cheating & plagiarism, academic honesty: cheating & plagiarism, what is academic misconduct.

You are guilty of cheating whenever you present as your own work something that you did not do. You are also guilty of cheating if you help someone else to cheat.

One of the most common forms of cheating is plagiarism, using another's words or ideas without proper citation. When students plagiarize, they usually do so in one of the following six ways:

• Using another writer's words without proper citation. If you use another writer's words, you must place quotation marks around the quoted material and include a footnote or other indication of the source of the quotation.
• Using another writer's ideas without proper citation. When you use another author's ideas, you must indicate with footnotes or other means where this information can be found. Your instructors want to know which ideas and judgments are yours and which you arrived at by consulting other sources. Even if you arrived at the same judgment on your own, you need to acknowledge that the writer you consulted also came up with the idea.
• Citing your source but reproducing the exact words of a printed source without quotation marks. This makes it appear that you have paraphrased rather than borrowed the author's exact words.
• Original: If the existence of a signing ape was unsettling for linguists, it was also startling news for animal behaviorists.
• Unacceptable borrowing of words: An ape who knew sign language unsettled linguists and startled animal behaviorists.
• Unacceptable borrowing of sentence structure: If the presence of a sign-language-using chimp was disturbing for scientists studying language, it was also surprising to scientists studying animal behavior.
•  Acceptable paraphrase: When they learned of an ape's ability to use sign language, both linguists and animal behaviorists were taken by surprise.
• Borrowing all or part of another student's paper or using someone else's outline to write your own paper.
• Using a paper writing "service" or having a friend write the paper for you. Regardless of whether you pay a stranger or have a friend do it, it is a breach of academic honesty to hand in work that is not your own or to use parts of another student's paper.
• In computer programming classes, borrowing computer code from another student and presenting it as your own. When original computer code is a requirement for a class, it is a violation of the University's policy if students submit work they themselves did not create.

Note: The guidelines that define plagiarism also apply to information secured on internet websites. Internet references must specify precisely where the information was obtained and where it can be found.

You may think that citing another author's work will lower your grade. In some unusual cases this may be true, if your instructor has indicated that you must write your paper without reading additional material. But in fact, as you progress in your studies, you will be expected to show that you are familiar with important work in your field and can use this work to further your own thinking. Your professors write this kind of paper all the time. The key to avoiding plagiarism is that you show clearly where your own thinking ends and someone else's begins.

Multiple submissions

Multiple submissions is the practice of submitting a single paper for credit in two different classes (in the same quarter or in different quarters). The UW does not have a general policy prohibiting this practice. However, because an individual professor may not permit the practice in their class, a student wishing to make a multiple submission must clear it with both professors involved. Non-compliance will result in a violation of the University's standard of conduct.

Another common form of cheating involves exams. Copying from someone else's paper, using notes (unless expressly allowed by the teacher), altering an exam for re-grading, getting an advance copy of the examination, or hiring a surrogate test-taker are all flagrant violations of University policy.

Collaboration

Educators recognize the value of collaborative learning; students are often encouraged to form study groups and assigned group projects. Group study often results in accelerated learning, but only when each student takes responsibility for mastering all the material before the group. For example, suppose a calculus study group is working on a set of homework problems. Little would be learned if each student worked only one or two problems and merely copied answers for the rest. A more beneficial approach would be for each member to work all problems and be assigned the task of explaining a few problems to the group. Illegal collaboration often occurs on homework in computer programming courses. A common case is when two students outline a program in detail together, and then type it into the computer separately, perhaps making minor modifications or corrections as they type. To a grader's trained eye, the structure of the programs is identical and the students are guilty of cheating because they haven't turned in separate, original work.

Illegal collaboration also occurs on writing assignments in liberal arts courses. Typically, students will create a detailed outline together, then write separate papers from the outline. The final papers may have different wording but share structure and important ideas. This is cheating because the students have failed to hand in something that is substantially their own work, and because they haven't cited the ideas that they've borrowed from each other.

Group projects require careful division of responsibility and careful coordination to control the quality of the final product. Collective work quickly degenerates when some students see it as a way to get through an assignment with the least amount of effort. Group work calls for a different kind of effort, not less of it. When group projects are assigned, the instructor is usually interested in your mastery of group process as well as the subject. Ask the instructor to clarify individual responsibilities and suggest a method of proceeding.

In summary, when a professor says, "Go ahead and work together," don't assume that anything goes. Professors often don't state the limits of collaboration explicitly. It is your responsibility to avoid crossing the line that turns collaboration into cheating. If you're not sure, ask.

Research into cheating at the college and university began in 1990 by Dr. Donald McCabe, one of the founders of ICAI. This research continues today, spearheaded by ICAI and its members.

McCabe’s original research and subsequent follow-up studies show that more than 60 percent of university students freely admit to cheating in some form.

In March 2020, ICAI researchers tested an updated version of the McCabe survey with 840 students across multiple college campuses. This work showed the following rates of key cheating behaviors:

• Cheated in any way on an exam

• Getting someone else to do your academic work (e.g. essay, exam, assignment) and submitting it as your own.

• Using unauthorized electronic resources (e.g. articles, Wikipedia, YouTube) for a paper, project, homework or other assignments.

• Working together on an assignment with other students when the instructor asked for individual work.

• Paraphrasing or copying a few sentences or more from any source without citing it in a paper or assignment you submitted.

*This includes data from 5 institutions including a private university, two large public universities, a small public university, and a small private liberal arts college

Rettinger, et al. (2020) in prep

Cheating in High School

McCabe also conducted surveys of over 70,000 high school students at over 24 high schools in the United States. This work demonstrated that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent admitted to plagiarism and 95 percent said they participated in some form of cheating, whether it was on a test, plagiarism or copying homework.

More about Don McCabe’s surveys and statistics, including sources for these statistics, is available in his excellent book Cheating in College .

• Our Mission

Why Students Cheat—and What to Do About It

A teacher seeks answers from researchers and psychologists. 

“Why did you cheat in high school?” I posed the question to a dozen former students.

“I wanted good grades and I didn’t want to work,” said Sonya, who graduates from college in June. [The students’ names in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.]

My current students were less candid than Sonya. To excuse her plagiarized Cannery Row essay, Erin, a ninth-grader with straight As, complained vaguely and unconvincingly of overwhelming stress. When he was caught copying a review of the documentary Hypernormalism , Jeremy, a senior, stood by his “hard work” and said my accusation hurt his feelings.

Cases like the much-publicized ( and enduring ) 2012 cheating scandal at high-achieving Stuyvesant High School in New York City confirm that academic dishonesty is rampant and touches even the most prestigious of schools. The data confirms this as well. A 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report revealed that more than half of high school students admitted to cheating on a test, while 74 percent reported copying their friends’ homework. And a survey of 70,000 high school students across the United States between 2002 and 2015 found that 58 percent had plagiarized papers, while 95 percent admitted to cheating in some capacity.

So why do students cheat—and how do we stop them?

According to researchers and psychologists, the real reasons vary just as much as my students’ explanations. But educators can still learn to identify motivations for student cheating and think critically about solutions to keep even the most audacious cheaters in their classrooms from doing it again.

Rationalizing It


First, know that students realize cheating is wrong—they simply see themselves as moral in spite of it.

“They cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger , professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to Rettinger and other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see as legitimate.

Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments, or when they perceive an overemphasis on teaching content linked to high-stakes tests.

“There was no critical thinking, and teachers seemed pressured to squish it into their curriculum,” said Javier, a former student and recent liberal arts college graduate. “They questioned you on material that was never covered in class, and if you failed the test, it was progressively harder to pass the next time around.”

But students also rationalize cheating on assignments they see as having value.

High-achieving students who feel pressured to attain perfection (and Ivy League acceptances) may turn to cheating as a way to find an edge on the competition or to keep a single bad test score from sabotaging months of hard work. At Stuyvesant, for example, students and teachers identified the cutthroat environment as a factor in the rampant dishonesty that plagued the school.

And research has found that students who receive praise for being smart—as opposed to praise for effort and progress—are more inclined to exaggerate their performance and to cheat on assignments , likely because they are carrying the burden of lofty expectations.

A Developmental Stage

When it comes to risk management, adolescent students are bullish. Research has found that teenagers are biologically predisposed to be more tolerant of unknown outcomes and less bothered by stated risks than their older peers.

“In high school, they’re risk takers developmentally, and can’t see the consequences of immediate actions,” Rettinger says. “Even delayed consequences are remote to them.”

While cheating may not be a thrill ride, students already inclined to rebel against curfews and dabble in illicit substances have a certain comfort level with being reckless. They’re willing to gamble when they think they can keep up the ruse—and more inclined to believe they can get away with it.

Cheating also appears to be almost contagious among young people—and may even serve as a kind of social adhesive, at least in environments where it is widely accepted.  A study of military academy students from 1959 to 2002 revealed that students in communities where cheating is tolerated easily cave in to peer pressure, finding it harder not to cheat out of fear of losing social status if they don’t.

Michael, a former student, explained that while he didn’t need to help classmates cheat, he felt “unable to say no.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Technology Facilitates and Normalizes It

With smartphones and Alexa at their fingertips, today’s students have easy access to quick answers and content they can reproduce for exams and papers.  Studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before.

To Liz Ruff, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, students’ use of social media can erode their understanding of authenticity and intellectual property. Because students are used to reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos, they “see ownership as nebulous,” she said.

As a result, while they may want to avoid penalties for plagiarism, they may not see it as wrong or even know that they’re doing it.

This confirms what Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University Business School professor,  reported in his 2012 book ; he found that more than 60 percent of surveyed students who had cheated considered digital plagiarism to be “trivial”—effectively, students believed it was not actually cheating at all.

Strategies for Reducing Cheating

Even moral students need help acting morally, said  Dr. Jason M. Stephens , who researches academic motivation and moral development in adolescents at the University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice. According to Stephens, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK.

1. Turn down the pressure cooker. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. A multiple-choice assessment tempts would-be cheaters, while a unique, multiphase writing project measuring competencies can make cheating much harder and less enticing. Repetitive homework assignments are also a culprit, according to research , so teachers should look at creating take-home assignments that encourage students to think critically and expand on class discussions. Teachers could also give students one free pass on a homework assignment each quarter, for example, or let them drop their lowest score on an assignment.

2. Be thoughtful about your language.   Research indicates that using the language of fixed mindsets , like praising children for being smart as opposed to praising them for effort and progress , is both demotivating and increases cheating. When delivering feedback, researchers suggest using phrases focused on effort like, “You made really great progress on this paper” or “This is excellent work, but there are still a few areas where you can grow.”

3. Create student honor councils. Give students the opportunity to enforce honor codes or write their own classroom/school bylaws through honor councils so they can develop a full understanding of how cheating affects themselves and others. At Fredericksburg Academy, high school students elect two Honor Council members per grade. These students teach the Honor Code to fifth graders, who, in turn, explain it to younger elementary school students to help establish a student-driven culture of integrity. Students also write a pledge of authenticity on every assignment. And if there is an honor code transgression, the council gathers to discuss possible consequences. 

4. Use metacognition. Research shows that metacognition, a process sometimes described as “ thinking about thinking ,” can help students process their motivations, goals, and actions. With my ninth graders, I use a centuries-old resource to discuss moral quandaries: the play Macbeth . Before they meet the infamous Thane of Glamis, they role-play as medical school applicants, soccer players, and politicians, deciding if they’d cheat, injure, or lie to achieve goals. I push students to consider the steps they take to get the outcomes they desire. Why do we tend to act in the ways we do? What will we do to get what we want? And how will doing those things change who we are? Every tragedy is about us, I say, not just, as in Macbeth’s case, about a man who succumbs to “vaulting ambition.”

5. Bring honesty right into the curriculum. Teachers can weave a discussion of ethical behavior into curriculum. Ruff and many other teachers have been inspired to teach media literacy to help students understand digital plagiarism and navigate the widespread availability of secondary sources online, using guidance from organizations like Common Sense Media .

There are complicated psychological dynamics at play when students cheat, according to experts and researchers. While enforcing rules and consequences is important, knowing what’s really motivating students to cheat can help you foster integrity in the classroom instead of just penalizing the cheating.

Plagiarism & Academic Integrity

• Academic Integrity

Types of Academic Dishonesty

• How to Avoid Plagiarism: Citing
• Citing Direct Quotes
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
• Try It! Identifying Plagiarism
• Understanding a Turnitin Report

There are many types of academic dishonesty - some are obvious, while some are less obvious.

• Misrepresentation ;
• Conspiracy ;
• Fabrication ;
• Collusion ;
• Duplicate Submission ;
• Academic Misconduct ;
• Improper Computer/Calculator Use ;
• Improper Online, TeleWeb, and Blended Course Use ;
• Disruptive Behavior ;
• and last, but certainly not least, PLAGIARISM .

We will discuss each of these types of academic dishonesty in more detail below. Plagiarism is the most common type of academic dishonesty, and also the easiest type to commit on accident! See the plagiarism page for more info about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it in your work.

Cheating is taking or giving any information or material which will be used to determine academic credit.

  Examples of cheating include:

• Copying from another student's test or homework.
• Allowing another student to copy from your test or homework.
• Using materials such as textbooks, notes, or formula lists during a test without the professor's permission.
• Collaborating on an in-class or take-home test without the professor's permission.
• Having someone else write or plan a paper for you.

  Bribery takes on two forms:

• Bribing someone for an academic advantage, or accepting such a bribe (i.e. a student offers a professor money, goods, or services in exchange for a passing grade, or a professor accepts this bribe).
• Using an academic advantage as a bribe (i.e. a professor offers a student a passing grade in exchange for money, goods, or services, or a student accepts this bribe).

Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation is any act or omission that is intented to deceive an instructor for academic advantage. Misrepresentation includes lying to an instructor in an attempt to increase your grade, or lying to an instructor when confronted with allegations of academic dishonesty.

Conspiracy means working together with one or more persons to commit or attempt to commit academic dishonesty.

Fabrication

Fabrication is the use of invented or misrepresentative information. Fabrication most often occurs in the sciences, when students create or alter experimental data. Listing a source in your works cited that you did not actually use in your research is also fabrication.

Collusion is the act of two or more students working together on an individual assignment.

Duplicate Submission

A duplicate submission means a student submits the same paper for two different classes. If a student submits the same paper for two different classes within the same semester, the student must have the permission of both instructors. If a student submits the same paper for two different classes in different semesters, the student must have the permission of their current instructor.

Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is the violation of college policies by tampering with grades or by obtaining and/or distributing any part of a test or assignment. For example:

• Obtaining a copy of a test before the test is admisistered.
• Distributing, either for money or for free, a test before it is administered.
• Encouraging others to obtain a copy of a test before the test is administered.
• Changing grades in a gradebook, on a computer, or on an assignment.
• Continuing to work on a test after time is called.

Improper Computer/Calculator Use

Improper computer/calculator use includes:

• Unauthorized use of computer or calculator programs.
• Selling or giving away information stored on a computer or calculator which will be submitted for a grade.
• Sharing test or assignment answers on a calculator or computer.

Improper Online, TeleWeb, and Blended Course Use

Improper online, teleweb, and blended course use includes:

• Accepting or providing outside help on online assignments or tests.
• Obtaining test materials or questions before the test is administered.

Disruptive Behavior

Disruptive behavior is any behavior that interfers with the teaching/learning process. Disruptive bahavior includes:

• Disrespecting a professor or another student, in class or online.
• Talking, texting, or viewing material unrelated to the course during a lecture.
• Failing to silence your cell phone during class.
• Posting inappropriate material or material unrealted to the course on discussion boards.
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What is academic misconduct? Cheating, plagiarizing, and other shortcut solutions

The importance of terminology

How students from diverse backgrounds bring different perspectives on plagiarism to the classroom

Academic integrity is key to an accurate assessment of student knowledge. Promoting integrity begins with building awareness of forms of academic misconduct.

The consequences of not addressing misinformation and missing the opportunity to teach critical thinking are many. And it’s important to address the difference between fact and opinion early on. Here, guest blogger Lisa Macdonald discusses a lesson plan that helps students discern fact from opinion.

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Aligning our understanding of definitions of academic integrity is important to promoting lifelong learning throughout the world in a post-industrial marketplace of ideas. Schools used to prepare students for jobs in an industrial world, ensuring that they understood procedures and hierarchy. But these days, the goals are different: academic institutions want graduates to display higher-order thinking, and employers want to hire people who can communicate original, innovative ideas. It may feel like a leap to link academic integrity terminology to learning outcomes and global equity, but in this post, we examine the connection between terminology and equity.

To start, academic integrity is important to teaching and learning . It ensures that feedback loops between students and teachers are based on accurate data. It promotes respect for learning. And it supports a life of honest workplace behavior.

Synchronizing terminology (such as the ENAI's Glossary for Academic Integrity 's work) and understanding the pedagogical context for evolving vocabulary are also components in supporting positive outcomes.

“Academic integrity,” a term popularized by researcher Dr. Donald McCabe in the early 1990s, describes work that displays honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage per the ICAI . However, these values are dependent on cultural context –and the fact that academic integrity has been defined by the West must be acknowledged. In cultures that focus on rote memorization as a learning methodology, mimicry (repeating what is learned, often without attribution) may be a form of respect.

The nuances of cultural context play into terminology. For instance, while in the West “academic integrity” is an oft-used term, it isn’t as common in many regions where mimicry and respect go hand-in-hand, thus clouding the definition of plagiarism. According to research, for example, “the Latvian academic terminology database AkadTerm does not include terms such as academic integrity,’ ‘academic honesty,’ and ‘academic misconduct’” ( Tauginiené, et al. 2019 ).

As recently as 2016, Wheeler states, “Although ‘morality’ has long been taught in the Japanese educational system, academic integrity is a concept that has only recently received much attention and one that is not altogether well understood” ( Wheeler, 2016 ).

Professor Tosh Yamamoto’s 2021 Turnitin interview verifies that finding when he states, “Academic integrity is, I believe, a philosophical mindset to reflect the learning mind to the mirror of honesty, sincerity, contribution to the future society, and also scientific attitude and ethics and morals. However, on the other hand, education in Japan is focused on rote memorization and regurgitation and understanding” ( Yamamoto, 2021 ).

At the same time, contextual knowledge also drives the content of academic integrity. As research into academic integrity and pedagogy expands, so does terminology to match evolving mindsets and approaches. One pedagogical trend is an attempt to be more holistic about why and how these behaviors occur and to stop “blaming students” for these outcomes. Thus, “cheating,” while widely used as a synonym for academic misconduct, is going out of vogue as pedagogy pivots away from a “blaming” and “policing” culture towards more neutral terminology. When someone breaches academic integrity, it is called academic misconduct or academic dishonesty, which Allemand describes as “any sort of unfair advantage” ( 2012 ). These words have supplanted older terms like “cheating.”

One of the largest shifts in pedagogy has been a pivot towards collaboration between teachers and students. Helping students feel seen and supported is the opposite of an adversarial, hierarchical, blaming culture. Helping students feel seen and supported also increases learning outcomes.

The word cheating, for instance, falls into the “Us versus Them”-themed terminology. As Zachek describes in their research, “One student in Helgeson’s (2002) study incorporates this concept into their response about how faculty handle cheating, stating, ‘It’s kind of like ‘students vs. teachers’ and we help each other out’” ( Zachek 2020, p. 110 ).

Shortcut solutions is also a term that leaves room for understanding pressured, struggling students. Cheating, for instance, is a “shortcut solution,” which is a milder term to define when students shortchange learning, whether via contract cheating, plagiarism, or getting the answers to a test before the assessment date. In the realm of research, it includes ghostwriting, removing authors, and self-citation with the intent of boosting one’s own impact factor.

Understanding why and how students cheat has become a part of the discussion around academic integrity. Terminology has, as a result, become more neutral, and reflects the way educators have approached misconduct. The current understanding is that sometimes, people don’t set out to cheat, plagiarize, or otherwise misrepresent their work. And that ultimately, plagiarism can become a teachable moment .

Academic integrity is linked to education integrity. The following are some examples of academic integrity’s importance:

• We need accurate measurements of student learning (i.e., to ensure the student’s answers are their own), not only to foster their next steps but also to inform curriculum
• Research is a cumulative, interactive process—we must ensure that research is honest to promote innovation and void of fraud.
• Respect for the learning process is critical for life-long learning.

In a day and age when education leads to opportunity, and where students, post-education, have goals of entering a marketplace of ideas , original thinking is critical to success for both students and institutions. Academic integrity is an indicator of future workplace success and honesty–and thus a proven starting point for a life-long journey of learning. It is necessary to ensure that academic integrity terminology follows current pedagogy and that it not be entirely punitive, because learning must happen at all points of learning, even at instances of misconduct.

What is the consequence of not having aligned definitions of academic integrity terminology? Global inequity.

When definitions aren’t aligned, international students, or those students who come from cultures that operate under different definitions, suffer.

According to Zachek’s research, “In looking at the demographics of who cheats, one of Beasley’s (2016) primary concerns is if students of minoritized racial backgrounds are more likely to be reported due to institutionalized racism. To this end, Beasley (2009) reports that, ‘International undergraduates were much more likely to get reported for academic dishonesty than were domestic students’” ( Zachek 2020, p. 113 ).

Specific studies focusing on Japan indicate that these differing definitions and cultural contexts impact attitudes and instances of misconduct. “Terminology is always cultural [sic] specific, and it often [sic] impossible for words to be perfectly translated across languages. Furthermore, it may be the case that some cross-cultural studies have inconsistent results if they neglect to take into consideration the varying lifestyles, societies, and cultures of the participants when making comparisons. Therefore, it is likely more valuable to conduct surveys of attitudes within one cultural setting” ( Teeter, 2014, p. 104 ).

East Asia is no exception; studies focused on Turkey also reflect cultural differences. “Returning to the subject of cultural differences, academic integrity may be associated with community values. To demonstrate this, we provide an example from Turkey, where it is a not [sic] an uncommon practice in recent times to deal with ‘academic integrity’ under the umbrella term ‘values education’, especially in the case of providing awareness of ethical issues (e.g. Cihan 2014 )” ( Tauginiené, et al., 2019 ).

Thus, academic integrity terminology is critical to academic success. And ensuring inclusive terminology is critical to creating equal opportunities for academic success and upholding the reputation of institutions everywhere.

According to an article in the Journal of Academic Ethics, “A consistent understanding and the use of agreed terms allows the prospect of a shared set of values. It also allows a possibility of developing internationally acceptable common solutions relating to teaching methods, content and preventative strategies for academic misconduct. Reaching agreement on these fundamental concepts would in turn lead to alliances between various fields of science. However, to achieve this, variations in the conceptualization and use of key terms need to be discussed and agreed” ( Tauginiené, et al. 2019 ).

Taking into consideration cultural norms and differences, and ensuring that terminology is widely agreed upon would promote a shared understanding and positive learning outcomes so that international students and researchers alike readily and more easily adhere to global standards. “Academic integrity” is a starting point for lifelong learning, so it’s essential to understand exactly what it means and looks like, and to leave little room for interpretation.

Likewise, terminology for “academic misconduct” can also decriminalize language. This shift is important in ensuring that academic misconduct is not merely punitive but an opportunity for further learning and corrective action.

Doing so advances humanity. Original ideas and respect for attributing ideas is critical to the global, post-industrial world in which we live today; when we share ideas, we need to do so with the assurance that credit is given where necessary. Together, as a community, we can move forward together with comfort and confidence in academic integrity.

How Cheating in College Hurts Students

Academic integrity is important, experts say, as plagiarism and other cheating may have severe consequences.

Getty Images | Westend61

Experts say the number of students engaging in academic dishonesty during the coronavirus pandemic is soaring.

Cheating in college is risky business loaded with potential consequences – failing classes, suspension, possible expulsion – yet it's common and perhaps more accessible than ever.

"A lot of people cheat a little," says David Pritchard, a physics professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied academic dishonesty in online classes. "There's also a few people who cheat a lot."

Though it may be tempting and feel harmless, experts caution college students to think twice before cheating on coursework. Here's how to know what is typically considered cheating and the potential consequences.

How College Students Cheat

Cheating is a multibillion-dollar business, with some educational technology companies making money off students who use their products to break or bend academic integrity rules and others earning revenue from colleges trying to prevent academic dishonesty.

Students also use classic classroom moves like scribbling hidden notes somewhere or using technology such as smartwatches. Copying a classmate's assignment or plagiarizing parts of published works for a paper remain popular methods.

Many of those tactics appear to have been replaced by artificial intelligence and generative language models like ChatGPT and Google Bard, which offer some services like writing, editing and idea generation for free.

Pritchard notes that ChatGPT has performed well on exams in certain subjects, and the American Bar Association reported in March 2023 that it passed the Uniform Bar Exam by "a significant margin." While some professors say they're keeping an open mind about ChatGPT and similar tools, others say it's impossible to ignore the reality that students are using them to cheat.

ChatGPT "is the future of cheating," Pritchard says.

Rebecca Hamlin, a professor of legal studies and political science at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst , recently joined the university's academic honesty board and has seen cases of students caught cheating with ChatGPT. She caught 12 in her own classes during the spring 2023 semester.

“If students are genuinely interested in learning how to become writers, I’m very resistant to the idea that ChatGPT can help them," she says. “It’s really risky because it’s actually way more obvious to someone who reads really good writing all day long. I can immediately tell."

But plenty of students slip through undetected or cheat in other inconspicuous ways, she says.

Most instructors underestimate just how rampant the issue is, says Eric Anderman, a professor at The Ohio State University and interim dean at its Mansfield campus. "We think we're underestimating it because people don't want to admit to it."

Here's what academic integrity experts say college students should know about the immediate and long-term consequences of cheating.

The Consequences of Cheating in College

Regardless of the cheating method, students are only harming themselves and their learning process, experts say.

“I know that sounds really cheesy, but I kind of don’t really understand why someone is going to waste their time and money going to college if they don’t want to learn how to write," Hamlin says. "That’s probably one of the top two to three skills that you gain when you go to college."

Students also deprive themselves of a genuine feeling of achievement when they cheat, says Russell Monroe, director of academic integrity at Liberty University in Virginia.

"There’s a sense of dignity in knowing that I got a grade that I earned, whether that’s for an assignment or a class," he says. "You can look at your degree with pride knowing this is something I achieved on my own merit and didn’t have to outsource anything to anyone else or steal or plagiarize."

Some penalties can have a lasting effect and financial repercussions. They are often less severe for first-time offenders, but colleges keep records of such behavior. Students who continue to cheat and get caught risk failing a class, receiving academic suspension or being expelled from the school, which may come with a note on their transcript explaining why they were dismissed. This designation will likely make it harder to enroll at another college , experts say.

Students who fail a class due to academic dishonesty are usually allowed to retake it. If it's a class required for graduation, they don't have a choice. Either way, that means more money out of pocket, perhaps in student loans .

Failing a course also typically harms a student's GPA , particularly if they don't retake it and earn a higher grade. This could jeopardize eligibility for financial aid or scholarships and lead to academic probation .

Each school has its own policies and disciplinary measures, and professors may vary in how they address academic dishonesty. Some may handle it on their own while others may send it to a disciplinary committee. It often depends on the severity of cheating, Monroe says. For example, cheating on a discussion board assignment isn't seen as as serious as plagiarizing a dissertation or final exam paper, or cheating on a credential or certification exam, he says.

Plagiarizing on capstone course papers or other assignments tied to graduation is a particularly egregious offense that could jeopardize a student's ability to graduate, experts say.

“We are putting our stamp of approval on you to move on to the next step," Monroe says. "That next step might be graduation, but if we’re doing that based upon bad information or false information, that’s a serious problem.”

Even students who think they got away with cheating may suffer consequences, such as missing out on foundational information that they need to learn and apply in higher-level classes.

Additionally, graduates who cheated and perhaps even ended up with good grades may find themselves starting their career unprepared and lacking needed knowledge and skills. And for jobs that have a safety component, unprepared workers could put themselves and others at risk.

Then there are occasions when academic dishonesty is revealed later and torpedoes a career, sometimes in a public and humiliating way.

Know What Is and Isn't Cheating

While some students are well aware that they're cheating and see it as merely a means to an end, not all forms of academic dishonesty are intentional. In many cases, it's an accident made while under stress or when a student has procrastinated , experts say.

Sometimes students make mistakes because they aren't properly prepared to engage with college-level work. For example, improperly citing sources on a term paper can lead to charges of plagiarism.

"I think part of what happens is students aren't always taught in high school how to cite and evaluate information from the internet," Anderman says. "And I think a lot of them, when they get to college – and this is not an excuse – truly don't realize that you can't just look something up on the internet and put it in your paper, that you still have to cite it, and they get caught."

Colleges commonly use a variety of plagiarism-checking software, such as Turnitin, which flags written work that may be uncited or improperly cited. These tools help keep students honest and significantly decrease plagiarism, experts say.

Some forms of cheating, such as intentional plagiarism, buying papers online or paying someone to complete course work, should be fairly obvious, experts say. This is often referred to as "contract cheating," Monroe says, and it's an offense that can lead to expulsion from Liberty.

"It’s very difficult for us to know when that’s happening, but when we do find out, we view that very seriously because there are significant portions of your entire degree that may not have been done by the student at all," he says.

Other areas aren't as clear-cut, particularly what is permissible when it comes to collaborating with classmates, sharing information and using AI products. Monroe says Liberty doesn't ban the use of AI or tools like ChatGPT, but there are boundaries around their ethical use. Students can use these tools to edit and get inspiration, but any assignment turned in must be the student's original work.

Experts also caution against using online companies that position themselves as tutoring organizations but largely help students cheat. Colleges offer many academic resources that students can use instead, and at no extra cost.

“I would definitely encourage a student who’s facing a tough situation or feels that they can’t do their work on time to contact their professor and see if there’s some kind of alternate arrangement that can be made," Monroe says.

Many professors are willing to accept work late, he says. Liberty’s policy is to take 10% off of an assignment's overall grade if it’s late.

“We definitely prefer a timely submission of work," Monroe says, "but contact your professor. They are definitely willing to work with students within the scope that they’re allowed to. That would definitely be a better situation than turning to cheating."

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Articles & Advice > Majors and Academics > Blog

Academic Ethics: How to Avoid Plagiarism and Cheating

Academic dishonesty doesn't just hurt you now—it can affect you long into the future. Let's explore the ethics of academics and how to avoid cheating.

by Carolina Jacobs Managing Editor, Classrooms.com

Last Updated: Feb 5, 2024

Originally Posted: Feb 5, 2024

The ethics of how students complete their work have absorbed the spotlight of academic discourse lately. Of course, learners have searched for ways to take the easy route on assignments ever since they first started receiving them. However, every essay and worksheet a student completes serves a great purpose, like teaching analytical thinking, problem-solving, and many other critical life skills. You shouldn’t rob yourself of academic value by plagiarizing or cheating to get your work done. But how do you define plagiarism and cheating? For instance, is there a responsible way to use artificial intelligence (AI) in your schoolwork to make it easier but not unoriginal work? Here’s everything you should know about the ethics of academia.

Why academic integrity is crucial

Teachers assign homework and tests to measure your comprehension levels and ensure you learn what you need not only to pass the class but also for the life ahead of you. A higher grade may mean you absorbed the material well, while lower ones often indicate what you may need to spend more time working on. That’s not to say the workload can’t be excessive—high schoolers  average almost seven hours of homework weekly!

Assignments and exams benefit both the educator and the student. You learn collaboration and critical-thinking skills, and your teachers discover your unique strengths and challenges and are better able to adapt to your learning needs. Academic integrity also ensures you gain the knowledge required for whatever career interests you; getting by as a doctoral medical student is much easier when you have strong foundations in biology from grade school, for instance.

Related: How to Lose Your College Acceptance

Know what’s considered plagiarism and cheating

The basic definition of plagiarism is when you try to pretend someone else’s thoughts are yours. For example, imagine your professor asks for an essay about your life and you turn in Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Or perhaps you get a few interesting details from the life story of whoever’s sitting next to you and mix them in with some of your own so you don’t have to work as hard. In either case, you’ve plagiarized by passing off someone’s ideas as your own while also ensuring that you’ve gained no educational benefit from the task.

While plagiarism is a form of cheating, there are plenty of other ways you can get in trouble for academic dishonesty. If you swipe the answer sheet from your teacher or keep your notes out during a closed-book test, you’re cheating. Another obvious option everyone knows is glancing at your neighbor’s paper for the answers. People often do these things if they feel like they don’t have enough time to review, are having trouble with the subject, or simply want to get a good grade without putting in the effort. While the first two concerns are understandable, the best option is to speak with your teacher for help in better comprehending the material and maybe even an extension to prepare.

Related: Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It on Assignments

Is using AI in academics considered cheating?

AI is currently driving the conversation on academic integrity. Adults have assumed students will use it to cheat, but 71% of learners who’ve used generative AI said they have not and never plan to use it for such reasons. Most understand that tools like ChatGPT merely cobbles other people’s ideas together from the internet, which is a form of plagiarism. However, there’s no consensus on whether using it for help with assignments is cheating.

Students who use AI for their homework assignments mainly use it to explain information—much like how they would ask their teacher for help in school. As long as you’re not using artificial intelligence to complete your work for you, it’s okay to ask it a few questions for clarity. However, if your school prohibits AI use, it’s better to do things the old-fashioned way and save your queries for your classmates, professors, or Google Search.

How students can uphold ethical academic standards

It’s easy to uphold your academic integrity in many ways. Perhaps most important of all is to ask your teachers questions when you’re confused or require more time. You’re far more likely to find an answer and learn a concept by speaking up when you need help or an extension. Asking friends is also fine, but make sure you’re getting their guidance—not just copying their answers. Other ways you can uphold ethical academic standards include:

• Ensuring you give yourself enough time to study and complete assignments by planning ahead if you know when they’re due
• Staying after school with a teacher or going to a professor’s office hours when you need more thorough help
• Communicating with your educators if you have time constraints, like working after school or caring for siblings
• Discussing study tips with your teachers to find  what learning style works best for you
• Learning the proper way to cite information to avoid accidental plagiarism
• Using AI for clarification rather than to generate answers

Related:   7 Savvy Habits to Help You Become a Highly Effective Student

Avoiding plagiarism and cheating is vital for success later in life. While some parts of what you’re learning might seem unnecessary, they could be significant to your career because you never know where it will take you. Additionally, academic work teaches soft skills that benefit you personally and professionally. Ask questions and learn to plan well to avoid a time-crunch scenario that tempts you to be academically dishonest.

Don’t let the fear of a bad grade get you down! Take advantage of all Our Best Advice for Homework, Studying, and Tests to make sure you get that A with integrity.

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About Carolina Jacobs

Carolina Jacobs is a Managing Editor at Classrooms.com .

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What To Do If You're Accused of Plagiarism/Cheating

Let’s just get this out of the way right off the bat. Don’t plagiarize. Don’t cheat.

Seriously, though, don’t do it. Not only does it devalue what you’re supposed to be learning and the hard work your peers are putting in, it’s completely and utterly against all colleges’ policies and rules. Violating a college’s academic honesty policies is no joke – most colleges have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to plagiarism and cheating, which can lead to your probation or expulsion. So again…seriously, do not plagiarize or cheat on any of your work, exams, papers, or projects.

But you wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t in some kind of trouble, so whether you did plagiarize/cheat or have been falsely accused of doing so, it’s imperative for you to know how to handle such a situation if it arises in your college career.

What to Do If Accused of Plagiarism?

Plagiarizing is taking someone else’s work and claiming it as your original work. This can take many forms. The most well-known (and easily recognized) way is copying someone’s paper / project or having someone else write your assignment for you. But copying pieces of material without giving credit or citations, using artwork you didn’t create or get permission to use, patchwriting , and paraphrasing ideas that aren’t your own without credit are all forms of plagiarism.

If you’ve been accused of plagiarism there’s a couple of key points to keep in mind:

1. Learn the School/Department’s Policy

Knowing your rights in this type of situation is vital for your defense against it. Are you being accused of direct plagiarism (i.e. directly stealing someone else’s work), self-plagiarism (reusing your own work), paraphrasing/patchwork plagiarism, unintentional plagiarism (poor or lacking citations), or something else? Keep in mind none of these are good, but the severity of what you are accused of matters…a lot. Blatant plagiarism will likely be dealt with very harshly, whereas accidental plagiarism might involve a heartfelt apology and minor punishment. Know what you’re accused of, what your school’s policy details might entail, and what the consequences are before you do anything.

2. Don’t Lie

Your professor has heard every excuse out there. They have software built for detecting plagiarism, instructors spend their entire careers learning this material, and they know from previous interactions how you talk, write, and think. Do you really think you’ll be able to get one by them? Lying about plagiarism is a sure-fire way for people to lose any feelings of leniency towards you. You’ll just tick them off.

3. Talk to Your Professor

Your professor is the first point of contact when being accused of plagiarism. Ask them to explain what they’re accusing you of and why they believe you plagiarized. They are also the ones most likely to grant you mercy (if you deserve it), so pay attention to what they’re saying, try to clarify if you can, and make sure you understand at the end of the conversation what they intent to do next – let you off with a warning, flunk you, report you to a higher authority in the school, etc.

4. References, References, References

Learn to reference and cite your sources. No one has ever gotten in trouble for over citing their sources. It’s perfectly fine if you reference someone else’s work in your papers, but give them proper credit in your project. Make sure you know your references and have them handy if accused of plagiarism. Showing where you got your information and how you accidentally didn’t cite something properly can go a long way in getting all charges cleared. Remember, instructors aren’t looking to bring someone up on academic dishonesty charges for a genuine mistake. If you can show where you made a good faith effort, you’ll likely just be given a warning.

5. Respect the Process & Ask for Mercy

If you get caught, do not (really, don’t do it) get defensive and aggressive. Being upset and defensive can get you into more trouble and create problems. Instead, be calm. Talk with your professor and/or dean calmly about your situation and learn what you need to do to plead your case. If you’ve plagiarized, there may be nothing you can do except accept the consequences of your actions, however, doing so in a calm and adult manner can only help you in the long run.

What to Do If Accused of Cheating?

Cheating on any academic work is unacceptable. Cheating is pretty self-explanatory for most people, but it can include looking at someone’s test/answers during an exam, using outside resources when they’re forbidden, stealing test answers off the internet, plagiarizing (which is a form of cheating), etc. So, what should you do if you are caught cheating?

1. Read and Learn the Policy

Sound familiar? Similar to plagiarism, it’s important to learn your school’s policy on cheating. It will tell you what the school defines as cheating and your rights. This can help you determine if you even have a case against the cheating charge you’re accused of committing.

2. Talk to Your Instructor

Be real—did you cheat? If you did, beg your instructor for mercy. They might not give it but it’s worth a shot. If you really, truly didn’t cheat, explain–calmly and rationally—the situation from your perspective. Try to give evidence in support of why you weren’t cheating. Do not become aggressive, angry, or shout at your instructor. Ask for their help in clearing you of this issue.

3. Ask If Your Score Can Be Thrown Out

Failing a class is better than getting in trouble for your entire academic career. You can ask you professor if they are willing to throw out the score or give you a zero on the test/exam/project you’re accused of cheating on. Keep in mind this might mean you risk failing the class, but that might be the best bad option. It’s easier to re-take a failed class rather than get kicked out of school.

4. Speak with the Administration about It

If this is your first offense and the severity of your cheating isn’t high, you may get a warning. There are many levels to this process – speak to an administrator or dean and understand the steps you’ll need to go through. Plead your case, ask for mercy, and show genuine remorse at your mistake. If you can show how this will never happen again (and mean it!) people will be more likely to give you a second chance.

5. Accept the Consequences

Colleges and universities have zero-tolerance policies for a reason. If you cheated (particularly if this is a 2 nd or more offense) you will likely have to accept the consequences of your actions. Try to do so responsibly and with contrition. You’ve come to college to learn and have a successful future, so cheating really isn’t the answer. But start now by making amends and take responsibility for your mistakes. It won’t clear away the problem right this moment, but it can turn things around for you down the road.

Plagiarism and cheating are serious, and the best way to not need any of this advice is to just not do it. College is about learning new things. Cheating your way to graduation is definitely going to harm not only your college career, but it can follow you into your job.

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Why Students Cheat on Homework and How to Prevent It

One of the most frustrating aspects of teaching in today’s world is the cheating epidemic. There’s nothing more irritating than getting halfway through grading a large stack of papers only to realize some students cheated on the assignment. There’s really not much point in teachers grading work that has a high likelihood of having been copied or otherwise unethically completed. So. What is a teacher to do? We need to be able to assess students. Why do students cheat on homework, and how can we address it?

Like most new teachers, I learned the hard way over the course of many years of teaching that it is possible to reduce cheating on homework, if not completely prevent it. Here are six suggestions to keep your students honest and to keep yourself sane.

ASSIGN LESS HOMEWORK

One of the reasons students cheat on homework is because they are overwhelmed. I remember vividly what it felt like to be a high school student in honors classes with multiple extracurricular activities on my plate. Other teens have after school jobs to help support their families, and some don’t have a home environment that is conducive to studying.

While cheating is  never excusable under any circumstances, it does help to walk a mile in our students’ shoes. If they are consistently making the decision to cheat, it might be time to reduce the amount of homework we are assigning.

I used to give homework every night – especially to my advanced students. I wanted to push them. Instead, I stressed them out. They wanted so badly to be in the Top 10 at graduation that they would do whatever they needed to do in order to complete their assignments on time – even if that meant cheating.

When assigning homework, consider the at-home support, maturity, and outside-of-school commitments involved. Think about the kind of school and home balance you would want for your own children. Go with that.

PROVIDE CLASS TIME

Allowing students time in class to get started on their assignments seems to curb cheating to some extent. When students have class time, they are able to knock out part of the assignment, which leaves less to fret over later. Additionally, it gives them an opportunity to ask questions.

When students are confused while completing assignments at home, they often seek “help” from a friend instead of going in early the next morning to request guidance from the teacher. Often, completing a portion of a homework assignment in class gives students the confidence that they can do it successfully on their own. Plus, it provides the social aspect of learning that many students crave. Instead of fighting cheating outside of class , we can allow students to work in pairs or small groups  in class to learn from each other.

Plus, to prevent students from wanting to cheat on homework, we can extend the time we allow them to complete it. Maybe students would work better if they have multiple nights to choose among options on a choice board. Home schedules can be busy, so building in some flexibility to the timeline can help reduce pressure to finish work in a hurry.

GIVE MEANINGFUL WORK

If you find students cheat on homework, they probably lack the vision for how the work is beneficial. It’s important to consider the meaningfulness and valuable of the assignment from students’ perspectives. They need to see how it is relevant to them.

In my class, I’ve learned to assign work that cannot be copied. I’ve never had luck assigning worksheets as homework because even though worksheets have value, it’s generally not obvious to teenagers. It’s nearly impossible to catch cheating on worksheets that have “right or wrong” answers. That’s not to say I don’t use worksheets. I do! But. I use them as in-class station, competition, and practice activities, not homework.

So what are examples of more effective and meaningful types of homework to assign?

• Ask students to complete a reading assignment and respond in writing .
• Have students watch a video clip and answer an oral entrance question.
• Require that students contribute to an online discussion post.
• Assign them a reflection on the day’s lesson in the form of a short project, like a one-pager or a mind map.

As you can see, these options require unique, valuable responses, thereby reducing the opportunity for students to cheat on them. The more open-ended an assignment is, the more invested students need to be to complete it well.

DIFFERENTIATE

Part of giving meaningful work involves accounting for readiness levels. Whenever we can tier assignments or build in choice, the better. A huge cause of cheating is when work is either too easy (and students are bored) or too hard (and they are frustrated). Getting to know our students as learners can help us to provide meaningful differentiation options. Plus, we can ask them!

This is what you need to be able to demonstrate the ability to do. How would you like to show me you can do it?

REDUCE THE POINT VALUE

If you’re sincerely concerned about students cheating on assignments, consider reducing the point value. Reflect on your grading system.

Are homework grades carrying so much weight that students feel the need to cheat in order to maintain an A? In a standards-based system, will the assignment be a key determining factor in whether or not students are proficient with a skill?

Each teacher has to do what works for him or her. In my classroom, homework is worth the least amount out of any category. If I assign something for which I plan on giving completion credit, the point value is even less than it typically would be. Projects, essays, and formal assessments count for much more.

CREATE AN ETHICAL CULTURE

To some extent, this part is out of educators’ hands. Much of the ethical and moral training a student receives comes from home. Still, we can do our best to create a classroom culture in which we continually talk about integrity, responsibility, honor, and the benefits of working hard. What are some specific ways can we do this?

Building Community and Honestly

• Talk to students about what it means to cheat on homework. Explain to them that there are different kinds. Many students are unaware, for instance, that the “divide and conquer (you do the first half, I’ll do the second half, and then we will trade answers)” is cheating.
• As a class, develop expectations and consequences for students who decide to take short cuts.
• Decorate your room with motivational quotes that relate to honesty and doing the right thing.
• Discuss how making a poor decision doesn’t make you a bad person. It is an opportunity to grow.
• Share with students that you care about them and their futures. The assignments you give them are intended to prepare them for success.
• Offer them many different ways to seek help from you if and when they are confused.
• Provide revision opportunities for homework assignments.
• Explain that you partner with their parents and that guardians will be notified if cheating occurs.
• Explore hypothetical situations.  What if you have a late night? Let’s pretend you don’t get home until after orchestra and Lego practices. You have three hours of homework to do. You know you can call your friend, Bob, who always has his homework done. How do you handle this situation?

EDUCATE ABOUT PLAGIARISM

Many students don’t realize that plagiarism applies to more than just essays. At the beginning of the school year, teachers have an energized group of students, fresh off of summer break. I’ve always found it’s easiest to motivate my students at this time. I capitalize on this opportunity by beginning with a plagiarism mini unit .

While much of the information we discuss is about writing, I always make sure my students know that homework can be plagiarized. Speeches can be plagiarized. Videos can be plagiarized. Anything can be plagiarized, and the repercussions for stealing someone else’s ideas (even in the form of a simple worksheet) are never worth the time saved by doing so.

In an ideal world, no one would cheat. However, teaching and learning in the 21st century is much different than it was fifty years ago. Cheating? It’s increased. Maybe because of the digital age… the differences in morals and values of our culture…  people are busier. Maybe because students don’t see how the school work they are completing relates to their lives.

No matter what the root cause, teachers need to be proactive. We need to know why students feel compelled to cheat on homework and what we can do to help them make learning for beneficial. Personally, I don’t advocate for completely eliminating homework with older students. To me, it has the potential to teach students many lessons both related to school and life. Still, the “right” answer to this issue will be different for each teacher, depending on her community, students, and culture.

STRATEGIES FOR ADDRESSING CHALLENGING BEHAVIORS IN SECONDARY

You are so right about communicating the purpose of the assignment and giving students time in class to do homework. I also use an article of the week on plagiarism. I give students points for the learning – not the doing. It makes all the difference. I tell my students why they need to learn how to do “—” for high school or college or even in life experiences. Since, they get an A or F for the effort, my students are more motivated to give it a try. No effort and they sit in my class to work with me on the assignment. Showing me the effort to learn it — asking me questions about the assignment, getting help from a peer or me, helping a peer are all ways to get full credit for the homework- even if it’s not complete. I also choose one thing from each assignment for the test which is a motivator for learning the material – not just “doing it.” Also, no one is permitted to earn a D or F on a test. Any student earning an F or D on a test is then required to do a project over the weekend or at lunch or after school with me. All of this reinforces the idea – learning is what is the goal. Giving students options to show their learning is also important. Cheating is greatly reduced when the goal is to learn and not simply earn the grade.

Thanks for sharing your unique approaches, Sandra! Learning is definitely the goal, and getting students to own their learning is key.

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Common Reasons Students Cheat

Poor Time Management

The most common reason students cite for committing academic dishonesty is that they ran out of time. The good news is that this is almost always avoidable. Good time management skills are a must for success in college (as well as in life). Visit the Undergraduate Academic Advisement website  for tips on how to manage your time in college.

Stress/Overload

Another common reason students engage in dishonest behavior has to do with overload: too many homework assignments, work issues, relationship problems, COVID-19. Before you resort to behaving in an academically dishonest way, we encourage you to reach out to your professor, your TA, your academic advisor or even  UB’s counseling services .

Wanting to Help Friends

While this sounds like a good reason to do something, it in no way helps a person to be assisted in academic dishonesty. Your friends are responsible for learning what is expected of them and providing evidence of that learning to their instructor. Your unauthorized assistance falls under the “ aiding in academic dishonesty ” violation and makes both you and your friend guilty.

Fear of Failure

Students report that they resort to academic dishonesty when they feel that they won’t be able to successfully perform the task (e.g., write the computer code, compose the paper, do well on the test). Fear of failure prompts students to get unauthorized help, but the repercussions of cheating far outweigh the repercussions of failing. First, when you are caught cheating, you may fail anyway. Second, you tarnish your reputation as a trustworthy student. And third, you are establishing habits that will hurt you in the long run. When your employer or graduate program expects you to have certain knowledge based on your coursework and you don’t have that knowledge, you diminish the value of a UB education for you and your fellow alumni.

"Everyone Does it" Phenomenon

Sometimes it can feel like everyone around us is dishonest or taking shortcuts. We hear about integrity scandals on the news and in our social media feeds. Plus, sometimes we witness students cheating and seeming to get away with it. This feeling that “everyone does it” is often reported by students as a reason that they decided to be academically dishonest. The important thing to remember is that you have one reputation and you need to protect it. Once identified as someone who lacks integrity, you are no longer given the benefit of the doubt in any situation. Additionally, research shows that once you cheat, it’s easier to do it the next time and the next, paving the path for you to become genuinely dishonest in your academic pursuits.

Temptation Due to Unmonitored Environments or Weak Assignment Design

When students take assessments without anyone monitoring them, they may be tempted to access unauthorized resources because they feel like no one will know. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, students have been tempted to peek at online answer sites, Google a test question, or even converse with friends during a test. Because our environments may have changed does not mean that our expectations have. If you wouldn’t cheat in a classroom, don’t be tempted to cheat at home. Your personal integrity is also at stake.

Different Understanding of Academic Integrity Policies

Standards and norms for academically acceptable behavior can vary. No matter where you’re from, whether the West Coast or the far East, the standards for academic integrity at UB must be followed to further the goals of a premier research institution. Become familiar with our policies that govern academically honest behavior.

Should universities be worried about the increasing capabilities of AI?

If a piece of writing was 49 per cent written by AI, with the remaining 51 per cent written by a human, is this considered original work? Image:  Unsplash/ Danial Igdery

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Michael mindzak.

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Stay up to date:, education, gender and work.

• The use of technology in academic writing is already widespread, with teachers and students using AI-based tools to support the work they are doing.
• However, as AI becomes increasingly advanced, institutions need to properly define what can be defined as AI-assistance and what is plagiarism or cheating, writes an academic.
• For example, if a piece of writing was 49% written by AI, with the remaining 51% written by a human, is this considered original work?

The dramatic rise of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has spotlit concerns about the role of technology in exam surveillance — and also in student cheating .

Some universities have reported more cheating during the pandemic, and such concerns are unfolding in a climate where technologies that allow for the automation of writing continue to improve.

Over the past two years, the ability of artificial intelligence to generate writing has leapt forward significantly , particularly with the development of what’s known as the language generator GPT-3. With this, companies such as Google , Microsoft and NVIDIA can now produce “human-like” text .

AI-generated writing has raised the stakes of how universities and schools will gauge what constitutes academic misconduct, such as plagiarism . As scholars with an interest in academic integrity and the intersections of work, society and educators’ labour, we believe that educators and parents should be, at the very least, paying close attention to these significant developments .

AI & academic writing

The use of technology in academic writing is already widespread. For example, many universities already use text-based plagiarism detectors like Turnitin , while students might use Grammarly , a cloud-based writing assistant. Examples of writing support include automatic text generation, extraction, prediction, mining, form-filling, paraphrasing , translation and transcription.

Advancements in AI technology have led to new tools, products and services being offered to writers to improve content and efficiency . As these improve, soon entire articles or essays might be generated and written entirely by artificial intelligence . In schools, the implications of such developments will undoubtedly shape the future of learning, writing and teaching.

Misconduct concerns already widespread

Research has revealed that concerns over academic misconduct are already widespread across institutions higher education in Canada and internationally.

In Canada, there is little data regarding the rates of misconduct. Research published in 2006 based on data from mostly undergraduate students at 11 higher education institutions found 53 per cent reported having engaged in one or more instances of serious cheating on written work, which was defined as copying material without footnoting, copying material almost word for word, submitting work done by someone else, fabricating or falsifying a bibliography, submitting a paper they either bought or got from someone else for free.

Academic misconduct is in all likelihood under-reported across Canadian higher education institutions .

There are different types of violations of academic integrity, including plagiarism , contract cheating (where students hire other people to write their papers) and exam cheating, among others .

Unfortunately, with technology, students can use their ingenuity and entrepreneurialism to cheat. These concerns are also applicable to faculty members, academics and writers in other fields, bringing new concerns surrounding academic integrity and AI such as:

• If a piece of writing was 49 per cent written by AI, with the remaining 51 per cent written by a human, is this considered original work?
• What if an essay was 100 per cent written by AI, but a student did some of the coding themselves?
• What qualifies as “AI assistance” as opposed to “academic cheating”?
• Do the same rules apply to students as they would to academics and researchers?

We are asking these questions in our own research , and we know that in the face of all this, educators will be required to consider how writing can be effectively assessed or evaluated as these technologies improve.

Augmenting or diminishing integrity?

At the moment, little guidance, policy or oversight is available regarding technology, AI and academic integrity for teachers and educational leaders.

Over the past year, COVID-19 has pushed more students towards online learning — a sphere where teachers may become less familiar with their own students and thus, potentially, their writing.

While it remains impossible to predict the future of these technologies and their implications in education, we can attempt to discern some of the larger trends and trajectories that will impact teaching, learning and research.

Have you read?

Professor robot – why ai could soon be teaching in university classrooms, how digital technology is changing the university lecture, this is how university students can emerge from the pandemic stronger, technology & automation in education.

A key concern moving forward is the apparent movement towards the increased automation of education where educational technology companies offer commodities such as writing tools as proposed solutions for the various “problems” within education.

An example of this is automated assessment of student work, such as automated grading of student writing . Numerous commercial products already exist for automated grading, though the ethics of these technologies are yet to be fully explored by scholars and educators.

Overall, the traditional landscape surrounding academic integrity and authorship is being rapidly reshaped by technological developments. Such technological developments also spark concerns about a shift of professional control away from educators and ever-increasing new expectations of digital literacy in precarious working environments .

These complexities, concerns and questions will require further thought and discussion. Educational stakeholders at all levels will be required to respond and rethink definitions as well as values surrounding plagiarism, originality, academic ethics and academic labour in the very near future.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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How Teens Use Technology to Cheat in School

Why teens cheat, text messaging during tests, storing notes, copying and pasting, social media, homework apps and websites, talk to your teen.

• Expectations and Consequences

When you were in school, teens who were cheating were likely looking at a neighbor’s paper or copying a friend’s homework. The most high-tech attempts to cheat may have involved a student who wrote the answers to a test on the cover of their notebook.

Cheating in today’s world has evolved, and unfortunately, become pervasive. Technology makes cheating all too tempting, common, and easy to pull off. Not only can kids use their phones to covertly communicate with each other, but they can also easily look up answers or get their work done on the Internet.

In one study, a whopping 35% of teens admit to using their smartphones to cheat on homework or tests. 65% of the same surveyed students also stated they have seen others use their phones to cheat in school. Other research has also pointed to widespread academic indiscretions among teens.

Sadly, academic dishonesty often is easily normalized among teens. Many of them may not even recognize that sharing answers, looking up facts online, consulting a friend, or using a homework app could constitute cheating. It may be a slippery slope as well, with kids fudging the honesty line a tiny bit here or there before beginning full-fledged cheating.

For those who are well aware that their behavior constitutes cheating, the academic pressure to succeed may outweigh the risk of getting caught. They may want to get into top colleges or earn scholarships for their grades. Some teens may feel that the best way to gain a competitive edge is by cheating.

Other students may just be looking for shortcuts. It may seem easier to cheat rather than look up the answers, figure things out in their heads, or study for a test. Plus, it can be rationalized that they are "studying" on their phone rather than actually cheating.

Teens with busy schedules may be especially tempted to cheat. The demands of sports, a part-time job , family commitments, or other after-school responsibilities can make academic dishonesty seem like a time-saving option.

Sometimes, there’s also a fairly low risk of getting caught. Some teachers rely on an honor system, and in some cases, technology has evolved faster than school policies. Many teachers lack the resources to detect academic dishonesty in the classroom. However, increasingly, there are programs and methods that let teachers scan student work for plagiarism.

Finally, some teens get confused about their family's values and may forget that learning is the goal of schooling rather than just the grades they get. They may assume that their parent would rather they cheat than get a bad grade—or they fear disappointing them. Plus, they see so many other kids cheating that it may start to feel expected.

It’s important to educate yourself about the various ways that today’s teens are cheating so you can be aware of the temptations your teen may face. Let's look at how teens are using phones and technology to cheat.

Texting is one of the fastest ways for students to get answers to test questions from other students in the room—it's become the modern equivalent of note passing. Teens hide their smartphones on their seats and text one another, looking down to view responses while the teacher isn't paying attention.

Teens often admit the practice is easy to get away with even when phones aren't allowed (provided the teacher isn't walking around the room to check for cellphones).

Some teens store notes for test time on their cell phones and access these notes during class. As with texting, this is done on the sly, hiding the phone from view.  The internet offers other unusual tips for cheating with notes, too.

For example, several sites guide teens to print their notes out in the nutrition information portion of a water bottle label, providing a downloadable template to do so. Teens replace the water or beverage bottle labels with their own for a nearly undetectable setup, especially in a large class. This, of course, only works if the teacher allows beverages during class.

Rather than conduct research to find sources, some students are copying and pasting material. They may plagiarize a report by trying to pass off a Wikipedia article as their own paper, for example.

Teachers may get wise to this type of plagiarism by doing a simple internet search of their own. Pasting a few sentences of a paper into a search engine can help teachers identify if the content was taken from a website.

A few websites offer complete research papers for free based on popular subjects or common books. Others allow students to purchase a paper. Then, a professional writer, or perhaps even another student, will complete the report for them.

Teachers may be able to detect this type of cheating when a student’s paper seems to be written in a different voice. A perfectly polished paper may indicate a ninth-grade student’s work isn’t their own. Teachers may also just be able to tell that the paper just doesn't sound like the student who turned it in.

Crowdsourced sites such as Homework Helper also provide their share of homework answers. Students simply ask a question and others chime in to give them the answers.

Teenagers use social media to help one another on tests, too. It only takes a second to capture a picture of an exam when the teacher isn’t looking.

That picture may then be shared with friends who want a sneak peek of the test before they take it. The photo may be uploaded to a special Facebook group or simply shared via text message. Then, other teens can look up the answers to the exam once they know the questions ahead of time.

While many tech-savvy cheating methods aren’t all that surprising, some methods require very little effort on the student’s part. Numerous free math apps such as Photomath allow a student to take a picture of the math problem. The app scans the problem and spits out the answers, even for complex algebra problems. That means students can quickly complete the homework without actually understanding the material.

Other apps, such as HWPic , send a picture of the problem to an actual tutor, who offers a step-by-step solution to the problem. While some students may use this to better understand their homework, others just copy down the answers, complete with the steps that justify the answer.

Websites such as Cymayth and Wolfram Alpha solve math problems on the fly—Wolfram can even handle college-level math problems. While the sites and apps state they are designed to help students figure out how to do the math, they are also used by students who would rather have the answers without the effort required to think them through on their own.

Other apps quickly translate foreign languages. Rather than have to decipher what a recording says or translate written words, apps can easily translate the information for the student.

The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages parents to talk to teens about cheating and their expectations for honesty, school, and communication. Many parents may have never had a serious talk with their child about cheating. It may not even come up unless their child gets caught cheating. Some parents may not think it’s necessary to discuss because they assume their child would never cheat. 

However, clearly, the statistics show that many kids do engage in academic discretions. So, don’t assume your child wouldn’t cheat. Often, "good kids" and "honest kids" make bad decisions. Make it clear to your teen that you value hard work and honesty.

Talk to your teen regularly about the dangers of cheating. Make it clear that cheaters tend not to get ahead in life.

Discuss the academic and social consequences of cheating, too. For example, your teen might get a zero or get kicked out of a class for cheating. Even worse, other people may not believe them when they tell the truth if they become known as dishonest or a cheater. It could also go on their transcripts, which could impair their academic future.

It’s important for your teen to understand that cheating—and heavy cell phone use—can take a toll on their mental health , as well. Additionally, studies make clear that poor mental health, particularly relating to self-image, stress levels, and academic engagement, makes kids more likely to indulge in academic dishonestly. So, be sure to consider the whole picture of why your child may be cheating or feel tempted to cheat.

A 2016 study found that cheaters actually cheat themselves out of happiness. Although they may think the advantage they gain by cheating will make them happier, research shows cheating causes people to feel worse.

Establish Clear Expectations and Consequences

Deciphering what constitutes cheating in today's world can be a little tricky. If your teen uses a homework app to get help, is that cheating? What if they use a website that translates Spanish into English? Also, note that different teachers have different expectations and will allow different levels of outside academic support.

Expectations

So, you may need to take it on a case-by-case basis to determine whether your teen's use of technology enhances or hinders their learning and/or is approved by their teacher. When in doubt, you can always ask the teacher directly if using technology for homework or other projects is acceptable.

To help prevent cheating, take a firm, clear stance so that your child understands your values and expectations. Also, make sure they have any needed supports in place so that they aren't tempted to cheat due to academic frustrations or challenges.

Tell your teen, ideally before an incident of academic dishonesty occurs, that you don’t condone cheating of any kind and you’d prefer a bad grade over dishonesty.

Stay involved in your teen’s education. Know what type of homework your teen is doing and be aware of the various ways your teen may be tempted to use their laptop or smartphone to cheat.

To encourage honesty in your child, help them develop a healthy moral compass by being an honest role model. If you cheat on your taxes or lie about your teen’s age to get into the movies for a cheaper price, you may send them the message that cheating is acceptable.

Consequences

If you do catch your teen cheating, take action . Just because your teen insists, “Everyone uses an app to get homework done,” don’t blindly believe it or let that give them a free pass. Instead, reiterate your expectations and provide substantive consequences. These may include removing phone privileges for a specified period of time. Sometimes the loss of privileges —such as your teen’s electronics—for 24 hours is enough to send a clear message.

Allow your teen to face consequences at school as well. If they get a zero on a test for cheating, don’t argue with the teacher. Instead, let your teen know that cheating has serious ramifications—and that they will not get away with this behavior.

However, do find out why your teen is cheating. Consider if they're over-scheduled or afraid they can’t keep up with their peers. Are they struggling to understand the material? Do they feel unhealthy pressure to excel? Ask questions to gain an understanding so you can help prevent cheating in the future and ensure they can succeed on their own.

It’s better for your teen to learn lessons about cheating now, rather than later in life. Dishonesty can have serious consequences. Cheating in college could get your teen expelled and cheating at a future job could get them fired or it could even lead to legal action. Cheating on a future partner could lead to the end of the relationship.

A Word From Verywell

Make sure your teen knows that honesty and focusing on learning rather than only on getting "good grades," at all costs, really is the best policy. Talk about honesty often and validate your teen’s feelings when they're frustrated with schoolwork—and the fact that some students who cheat seem to get ahead without getting caught. Assure them that ultimately, people who cheat truly are cheating themselves.

Common Sense Media. It's ridiculously easy for kids to cheat now .

Common Sense Media. 35% of kids admit to using cell phones to cheat .

Isakov M, Tripathy A. Behavioral correlates of cheating: environmental specificity and reward expectation .  PLoS One . 2017;12(10):e0186054. Published 2017 Oct 26. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186054

Marksteiner T, Nishen AK, Dickhäuser O. Students' perception of teachers' reference norm orientation and cheating in the classroom .  Front Psychol . 2021;12:614199. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614199

Khan ZR, Sivasubramaniam S, Anand P, Hysaj A. ‘ e’-thinking teaching and assessment to uphold academic integrity: lessons learned from emergency distance learning .  International Journal for Educational Integrity . 2021;17(1):17. doi:10.1007/s40979-021-00079-5

Farnese ML, Tramontano C, Fida R, Paciello M. Cheating behaviors in academic context: does academic moral disengagement matter?   Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences . 2011;29:356-365. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.11.250

Pew Research Center. How parents and schools regulate teens' mobile phones .

Mohammad Abu Taleb BR, Coughlin C, Romanowski MH, Semmar Y, Hosny KH. Students, mobile devices and classrooms: a comparison of US and Arab undergraduate students in a middle eastern university .  HES . 2017;7(3):181. doi:10.5539/hes.v7n3p181

Gasparyan AY, Nurmashev B, Seksenbayev B, Trukhachev VI, Kostyukova EI, Kitas GD. Plagiarism in the context of education and evolving detection strategies .  J Korean Med Sci . 2017;32(8):1220-1227. doi:10.3346/jkms.2017.32.8.1220

Bretag T. Challenges in addressing plagiarism in education .  PLoS Med . 2013;10(12):e1001574. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001574

American Academy of Pediatrics. Competition and cheating .

Korn L, Davidovitch N. The Profile of academic offenders: features of students who admit to academic dishonesty .  Med Sci Monit . 2016;22:3043-3055. doi:10.12659/msm.898810

Abi-Jaoude E, Naylor KT, Pignatiello A. Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health .  CMAJ . 2020;192(6):E136-E141. doi:10.1503/cmaj.190434

Stets JE, Trettevik R. Happiness and Identities . Soc Sci Res. 2016;58:1-13. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.04.011

Lenhart A. Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015 . Pew Research Center.

By Amy Morin, LCSW Amy Morin, LCSW, is the Editor-in-Chief of Verywell Mind. She's also a psychotherapist, an international bestselling author of books on mental strength and host of The Verywell Mind Podcast. She delivered one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time.

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A new phone number and email address have been established to facilitate the reporting of student academic integrity issues.

Individuals can email a concern to  [email protected]  or call 765-494-8778 to speak with a staff member in the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities about the matter. OSRR staff will then investigate the situation and provide feedback to the reporter.

Concerns may also be reported anonymously.​

"Academic Integrity: A Guide for Students"

Written by: Stephen Akers, PhD Executive Associate Dean of Students 1995, Revised 1999, 2003, 2009

Published by the Office of the Dean of Students in cooperation with Purdue Student Government

Helen B. Schleman Hall, Suite 216 656 Oval Drive West Lafayette, IN 47907-2050 Telephone: 765-494-1747

Purdue University values intellectual integrity and the highest standards of academic conduct. To be prepared to meet societal needs as leaders and role models, students must be educated in an ethical learning environment that promotes a high standard of honor in scholastic work. Academic dishonesty undermines institutional integrity and threatens the academic fabric of Purdue University. Dishonesty is not an acceptable avenue to success. It diminishes the quality of a Purdue education, which is valued because of Purdue's high academic standards.

Fostering an appreciation for academic standards and values is a shared responsibility among students, faculty, and staff. The information in this brochure is directed to students to define academic dishonesty and how to avoid it.

Definition of Academic Dishonesty

Purdue prohibits "dishonesty in connection with any University activity. Cheating, plagiarism, or knowingly furnishing false information to the University are examples of dishonesty" (Part 5, Section III-B-2-a,  Student Regulations) .  Furthermore, the University Senate has stipulated that "the commitment of acts of cheating, lying, and deceit in any of their diverse forms (such as the use of substitutes for taking examinations, the use of illegal cribs, plagiarism, and copying during examinations) is dishonest and must not be tolerated. Moreover, knowingly to aid and abet, directly or indirectly, other parties in committing dishonest acts is in itself dishonest" (University Senate Document 72-18, December 15, 1972).

More specifically, the following are a few examples of academic dishonesty that have been discovered at Purdue University.

• substituting on an exam for another student
• substituting in a course for another student
• paying someone else to write a paper and submitting it as one's own work
• giving or receiving answers by use of signals during an exam
• copying with or without the other person's knowledge during an exam
• doing class assignments for someone else
• plagiarizing published material, class assignments or lab reports
• turning in a paper that has been purchased from a commercial research firm or obtained from the Internet
• padding items of a bibliography
• obtaining an unauthorized copy of a test in advance of its scheduled administration
• using unauthorized notes during an exam
• collaborating with other students on assignments when it is not allowed
• obtaining a test from the exam site, completing and submitting it later
• altering answers on a scored test and submitting it for a regrade
• accessing and altering grade records
• stealing class assignments from other students and submitting them as one's own
• fabricating data
• destroying or stealing the work of other students

Plagiarism is a special kind of academic dishonesty in which one person steals another person's ideas or words and falsely presents them as the plagiarist's own product. This is most likely to occur in the following ways:

• using the exact language of someone else without the use of quotation marks and without giving proper credit to the author
• presenting the sequence of ideas or arranging the material of someone else even though such is expressed in one's own words, without giving appropriate acknowledgment
• submitting a document written by someone else but representing it as one's own

Basic Tips on Avoiding Claims of Dishonesty

Careful attention to your own academic duties is the best way to avoid allegations of academic dishonesty. If you are asked to do something that you feel is wrong or unethical, it probably is. Aiding someone in committing an academically dishonest act is just as serious as receiving the aid. Review course syllabi and make sure you understand your instructors' expectations and responses regarding academic dishonesty. The following tips may help you avoid problems:

• Do not look around, particularly in the direction of other students' papers, during an exam since it may appear you are trying to copy from others.
• When taking an exam, shield your answer sheet. If you feel someone is trying to copy from you, ask the proctor if you may move. This will alert the proctor to a potential problem and help remove suspicion from you as aiding the other student if a claim of cheating arises.
• If you are allowed to take materials into a testing site, make sure no notes or materials are exposed or accessible that could cause one to believe you are using unauthorized aids (cribs)
• Should there be any doubt, clarify with your instructor how much collaboration, if any, is permitted or expected when working on projects or assignments with other students
• Know that it is risky to electronically copy or transmit a computer program or file to other students. You could be implicated in a cheating incident if others alter that program and submit it as their own work.
• Protect your computer login identifications and passwords. Other students could use them to access your work and subsequently implicate you in a cheating case.
• Since it is impossible to write everything with complete originality, use quotation marks, footnotes, and parenthetical textual notes to acknowledge other people's words or ideas employed in your paper. Check with your instructor for proper techniques for citations and attribution if you have any doubts.
• Do not include sources in a bibliography or reference list if you have not used the sources in the preparation of your paper. To list unused sources is called padding the bibliography.
• Do not acquire previous papers, lab reports, or assignments used in a course with the intention of copying parts or all of the material. Consult with your instructor on how such materials may be used as general guides.
• Keep rough drafts and copies of papers submitted in courses since other students may get access to your work and attempt to claim it as their own
• Do not leave copies of assignments in computer labs
• Do not share your current or former assignments, projects, papers, etc., with other students to use as guides for their work. Such a practice could lead to claims of collaboration if part or all of your work is lifted by another student. Sometimes friendly assistance may escalate into claims of blatant dishonesty.
• Check with your instructor before turning in a paper or project you submitted in another course
• Do not give your homework papers, projects, or other assignments to other students to submit for you. They may use parts of your work.
• When completing take-home exams, do not collaborate with other persons unless approved by the instructor
• Keep your student identification card in your possession or secured. Never loan your identification to anyone.
• Do not make any marks on a graded exam if there is any chance you may submit it for a regrade. Make all notations on a separate paper.

What To Do if You Suspect or Become Aware of Cheating

Students who cheat gain an unfair advantage over honest students. Although reporting suspected or observed cheating may seem difficult, failure to do so hurts you as well as Purdue. Observations or knowledge of academic dishonesty should be reported immediately to course instructors. Even if your observations are reported anonymously, such information may encourage instructors to do further investigation, detect patterns of cheating or impose effective preventive measures. If you are uncomfortable speaking directly with an instructor, you are urged to consult with staff in the Office of the Dean of Students who will advise and assist you in addressing the problem.

Consequences for Academic Dishonesty

Before any formal action is taken against a student who is suspected of committing academic dishonesty, the instructor is encouraged to meet with the student to discuss the facts surrounding the suspicions. If the instructor concludes that the student is guilty, the matter may be resolved with the student through punitive grading. Examples of punitive grading are giving a lower or failing grade on the assignment, having the student repeat the assignment and perhaps some additional assignment, or assessing a lower or failing grade for the course. The grade appeals system offers recourse to a student whose grade has been reduced unfairly for alleged academic dishonesty.

Additionally, instructors are encouraged to refer cases to the Office of the Dean of Students for adjudication and/or appropriate record keeping. The Office of the Dean of Students will follow established procedures as provided in Part 5, Section III, of Student Regulations. If a student is found guilty, possible penalties include a warning, probation, probated suspension, suspension or expulsion.

Feel free to make a print of this brochure for yourself. Copies of this brochure are available through the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities at no cost, 765-494-1250.

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Plagiarism, Cheating, and Misuse of Academic Records

Procedural information regarding cases of plagiarism, cheating, and falsification and misuse of academic records is available on the University Ombud's website .

Falsification and Misuse of Academic Records

Plagiarism : Per University policy, students shall not plagiarize, cheat, or falsify or misuse academic records. Students are expected to adhere to University policy on cheating and plagiarism in all courses. The minimum penalty for a first offense is a zero on the assignment on which the offense occurred. If the offense is considered severe or the student has other academic offenses on their record, more serious penalties, up to suspension from the University may be imposed.

Plagiarism and cheating are serious breaches of academic conduct. Each student is advised to become familiar with the various forms of academic dishonesty as explained in the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities . Complete information can be found on the Academic Ombud website . A plea of ignorance is not acceptable as a defense against the charge of academic dishonesty. It is important that you review this information as all ideas borrowed from others need to be properly credited.

Senate Rule 6.3.1 (see current Senate Rules ) states that all academic work, written or otherwise, submitted by students to their instructors or other academic supervisors, is expected to be the result of their own thought, research, or self-expression. In cases where students feel unsure about a question of plagiarism involving their work, they are obliged to consult their instructors on the matter before submission.

When students submit work purporting to be their own, but which in any way borrows ideas, organization, wording, or content from another source without appropriate acknowledgment of the fact, the students are guilty of plagiarism.

Plagiarism includes reproducing someone else's work (including, but not limited to a published article, a book, a website, computer code, or a paper from a friend) without clear attribution. Plagiarism also includes the practice of employing or allowing another person to alter or revise the work which a student submits as his/her own, whoever that other person may be, except under specific circumstances (e.g. Writing Center review, peer review) allowed by the Instructor of Record or that person’s designee. Plagiarism may also include double submission, self-plagiarism, or unauthorized resubmission of one’s own work, as defined by the instructor.

Students may discuss assignments among themselves or with an instructor or tutor, except where prohibited by the Instructor of Record (e.g. individual take-home exams). However, the actual work must be done by the student, and the student alone, unless collaboration is allowed by the Instructor of Record (e.g. group projects).

When a student's assignment involves research in outside sources or information, the student must carefully acknowledge exactly what, where and how he/she has employed them. If the words of someone else are used, the student must put quotation marks around the passage in question and add an appropriate indication of its origin. Making simple changes while leaving the organization, content and phraseology intact is plagiaristic. However, nothing in these Rules shall apply to those ideas which are so generally and freely circulated as to be a part of the public domain.

Please note: Any assignment you turn in may be submitted to an electronic database to check for plagiarism.

Cheating : Cheating is defined by its general usage. It includes, but is not limited to, the wrongfully giving, taking, or presenting any information or material by a student with the intent of aiding himself/herself or another on any academic work which is considered in any way in the determination of the final grade. The fact that a student could not have benefited from an action is not by itself proof that the action does not constitute cheating. Any question of definition shall be referred to the University Appeals Board.

Falsification and Misuse of Academic Records : Maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and appropriate privacy of student academic records is an essential administrative function of the University and a basic protection of all students. Accordingly, the actual or attempted falsification, theft, misrepresentation or other alteration or misuse of any official academic record of the University, specifically including knowingly having unauthorized access to such records or the unauthorized disclosure of information contained in such records, is a serious academic offense. As used in this context, "academic record" includes all paper and electronic versions of the partial or complete permanent academic record, all official and unofficial academic transcripts, application documents and admission credentials, and all academic record transaction documents. The minimum sanction for falsification, including the omission of information, or attempted falsification or other misuse of academic records as described in this section is suspension for one semester.

University Senate

NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

‘I didn’t feel like doing it’: The students farming out schoolwork to ChatGPT

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When 16-year-old student Fiore realised an English essay was due the next day, his first thought wasn’t to open a book and cram the assignment into an all-nighter. 

After all, it’s 2024.

Instead, he got ChatGPT to save his bacon by writing the entire essay for him within seconds. All he had to do was input the assignment criteria, the required number of paragraphs and formatting information before letting the AI chatbot do the rest. 

Describing this process as ‘incredibly easy’, Fiore has since submitted at least five essays this way and, he tells Metro.co.uk, has no regrets. 

‘I started using ChatGPT because it’s much easier than actually doing work and my grade was already suffering,’ admits the teen. ‘Most of the time the essays are just English assignments that I simply don’t feel like doing, or based off reading material I don’t want to read.’

While ChatGPT generates ‘pretty convincing’ essays, Fiore always proofreads them and occasionally edits a few words so that they sound ‘more organic’. And whatever he’s doing works, he adds, as they’re bringing in better grades, too. 

No regrets 

Although many people would fear plagiarism detectors or eagle-eyed lecturers spotting AI-generated essays , Fiore isn’t afraid of getting caught.

In fact, he doesn’t believe that his teachers ‘will go through the effort of checking’ essays for ChatGPT-generated content , saying that his school ‘doesn’t explicitly say anything against AI use’.

And while his parents don’t know he uses ChatGPT for his schoolwork, he doesn’t think they would ‘necessarily care’. 

‘I will absolutely be using ChatGPT for assignments to come, English or not,’ the student says adamantly. 

It’s a move Chris Carron, CEO of plagiarism detection software company Turnitin, warns against, however. He says that using AI to ‘outsource their homework and essays’, can affect students’ ability to ‘learn or build critical thinking and communication skills’ that will be needed beyond school.

‘This new shortcut may be tempting in a pinch, but it will set them up for failure in the workplace,’ he tells Metro.co.uk.

However, it could be a little too late. After analysing 200 million essays, Turnitin found that more than one in ten comprised at least 20% AI-generated text. Six million had at least 80% AI content.

Legitimate use

Not all students are using AI to cheat, though – and not are all using ChatGPT, with a range of similar models available including Google’s Gemini . Many view this technology as a tool to assist their studies and enhance their learning.

23-year-old Elizabeth, who is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism, regularly uses ChatGPT in her works. She says the chatbot helps her better understand complex academic reading materials by simplifying hard-to-understand text.

She has also found uses for it in essay writing, inputting paragraphs and asking the AI tool to rephrase her writing to make it ‘more succinct’ – something some may consider cheating, or at least questionable.  

The software also helps her find sources when researching essays, adds Elizabeth. 

‘ I started using it a few months after it came into popular use,’ she tells Metro.co.uk. ‘I was definitely worried about things like plagiarism at first, but mostly when I was talking about it with other people. 

I would say I felt conflicted but only before I’d actually seen for myself the ways it would be useful and what its limitations would be.’ 

Since then, the student has learned how to use the tool responsibly, which her lecturers even discussed in talks.

Elizabeth says the use of AI among her peers is ‘pretty common now’. She’s heard stories of people getting in trouble for misusing the technology and says there’s a sense of shame surrounding such uses.

But she believes there is a fine line between using ChatGPT to inspire essay writing and using it ‘as a substitute for studying or as a shortcut in essay writing’.

Elizabeth continues: ‘I never copy and paste their output, but it gives me a blueprint to go off of to write more clearly.

‘As a student, it helps to have something that can break down very abstract concepts.’

Supporting disabled students

Maya Seth, a 22-year-old public relations executive, was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was 11 and, because of her condition, found it hard to keep pace with reading materials during her design degree.

While Maya received one-to-one support from her university, she also used ChatGPT to comprehend in-depth academic text. 

Asking ChatGPT to summarise academic articles enabled her to determine the ‘key points’, she explains. This helped her save time as she could ‘quickly work out if an article was worth reading’ in the first place. 

‘Studying a creative subject, AI was also a great way to get over creative blocks by using it as a way to make my blank page less blank,’ she says.

‘I didn’t use anything the AI produced, but it was a good thought-provoking starting point.’

But as this technology isn’t always accurate, Maya says it’s important to ‘read the whole article, not just the AI summary’.

She advises: ‘Students can use the tools ethically by being transparent about their AI use and ensuring against misinformation through fact checking with credible sources.’

Since leaving university in 2023, Maya is now exploring ways it can help her in the workplace as part of an AI working group at her company. She adds: ‘I think ChatGPT is a great tool that we all need to work out how to use ethically.’

It’s not just students

Educators can also find uses for AI tools. Last year, education secretary Gillian Keegan said the tech could do the ‘heavy lifting’ for teachers by marking students’ homework and planning lessons.

They are already using AI software for creating annual school reports with the click of a button, and one school has even appointed an AI headteacher

Minty Pester, an art and media lecturer at a Welsh college, says artificial intelligence is allowing him to ‘speed up admin tasks’ and ‘plan units of work’.

The technology is also helping him provide students with tailored support, he says. 

He explains: ‘AI makes it quick and easy to change the level something is aimed at or to create something new for individuals with specific areas of improvement.’

With AI rapidly transforming the workplace, Minty believes that understanding technology is just as important as maths or digital literacy for students. 

He calls it a ‘vital skill’ that allows students ‘to be more creative with their ideas, to explore concepts and find research that they might not have thought to look for’.

‘The idea is to use it as a tool, not to generate work for the student – they still need to demonstrate their own knowledge and understanding for their qualifications,’ he says.

But is it ethical?

While AI is delivering benefits for both students and teachers, there are obvious ethical implications and technical constraints to consider. 

Jade McLellan, deputy head pastoral at St Dunstan’s College, believes that educators should teach ‘young people about the ethics of AI development’, helping them understand ‘how to use it, but also limit and control it’.

However, Minty says a potential downside of using AI as an educational tool could be ‘a shift in priorities’.

He warns that some may view AI usage as ‘people getting lazy’ or ‘not holding on to information or having the same level of literacy skill’, just like predictive text may affect someone’s ability to spell on their own. 

Minty has also caught students submitting AI-generated work, which he says can result in them being disciplined for plagiarism or ‘losing their whole qualification’.

He says teachers can detect AI-generated essays by looking for ‘change[s] in sentence structure, abundance of adjectives, use of bullet point lists and higher level writing’. 

‘I have caught students trying to pass off work as their own that has been created by AI, luckily for them it was spotted before their final submissions so I could let them know that it needed redoing,’ he adds. 

‘Students that try and ‘get away’ with a copy and paste assignment tend to put as much effort into their prompts as they do writing their own work, and it shows.’

Because the large language models powering ChatGPT and other AI tools are trained on large datasets, there are also data privacy concerns. 

Minty says both students and educators should refrain from entering sensitive information or copyrighted work into these tools. 

‘We can get around this by using ‘closed’ AI tools that don’t take or store the inputs such as Microsoft Copilot,’ he adds.

Educators used to more traditional teaching methods may struggle to understand AI technology and use it incorrectly, too.

One professor in Texas ran his students’ essays through ChatGPT to see if the AI chatbot had written them , failing many students after it said ‘yes’. But it turns out ChatGPT was actually lying . 

‘Despite the widespread adoption of AI in the classroom, teachers require more support and guidance to identify AI usage and introduce good practices into the classroom,’ says Jason Tomlinson, managing director at edtech company RM Technology. 

‘In fact, research by RM Technology found that a third of teachers believe their students have a better understanding of AI than they do.’

When it comes to addressing ‘this knowledge gap’,  he says the education system must develop regulatory policies on AI use, collaborate with experts from the private sector and improve the accessibility of teacher training schemes.

And, as 17-year-old Eastbourne College student Reuben Booth found out, AI tools like ChatGPT can generate ‘verbose’ answers that ‘lack practical sense’.

‘Its responses could therefore be easily noticed by my teachers and it generally doesn’t allow me to access high marks in my work,’ the teenager explains.

‘I once asked Chat GPT to summarise a long document, which I couldn’t apprehend, into bullet points. However, I found that this meant the understanding of the text I gained was limited, leaving me with no choice but to re-trace my steps and make my own bullet points to work out the text adequately.

‘I would opt against using Chat GPT, most notably because it often doesn’t provide me with answers that contain the precision and specific knowledge that the mark schemes require in all my individual subjects.’

Considering both the opportunities and downsides of AI use in education, Chris, CEO of Turnitin, encourages the sector to ‘experiment with leveraging AI in all teacher and student work’.

Doing so will help educators clarify ‘where and how AI can help with productivity or quality of teaching materials’, he says. 

He concludes: ‘We’re hearing of significant productivity gains for teachers, creating more time for teaching and working with students.’

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