Academic Integrity at
Roanoke College
Created by Dr. Angela Allen
What is wrong with cheating or
plagiarizing?
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It is a fundamentally dishonest and unfair way of gaining a
personal edge (maybe) and is counter to the values of the
College.
It runs counter to the goals for the College and your own
goals…the intention is to learn, not just “pass”.
It sets the “cheater” up for failure later in higher level classes
It can negatively affect academic integrity of other students by
setting up cheating as a norm, or as an acceptable behavior.
It can negatively affect the grades of intellectually honest
students
A college or university where cheating is known to occur
suffers a blow to its reputation, and to the reputation of its
alumni.
Most, if not all, students know this. Academic integrity
violations are usually impulsive, not planned. Resist the
impulse.
Consequences of getting
caught
• Frequently, the offense takes place near the end of a
semester and the culprit gets an F or XF in a class for
which a great deal of work was already done.
• An XF, an academic suspension, and expulsion become
part of a student’s permanent academic record and appear
on transcripts. Graduate schools and some jobs require
copies of those transcripts.
• Academic integrity violations are kept confidential but can
be revealed on a need-to-know basis if the student is
applying for an internship or qualifies for an honor society
or scholarship. In many cases, an AI violation is a dealbreaker.
Specific violations of
academic integrity
• Cheating
– Using unauthorized assistance with regard to tests,
papers and other assignments
– GIVING such assistance knowingly
– Altering a grade or test answer
• If you aren’t sure if collaboration or use of
aids such as a calculator are acceptable,
ASK YOUR PROFESSOR. Assume that if
collaboration is not explicitly made
permissible, it’s not OK. It’s YOUR
responsibility to know what is OK and not
OK in your classes.
• Lying
– Any statement, written or oral, that is false and is
intended to dishonestly improve one’s grade in a
course, or to protect another person.
• Plagiarizing
– Passing off another’s work as one’s own without
sufficient acknowledgement. Rephrasing someone’s
work without quotation. Using someone else’s writing
without quotes. Buying a paper online is plagiarism
(and a waste of money because they’re usually bad).
• Impeding an investigation
• Denying access to academic materials.
Paraphrasing, a common
plagiarism issue
• The absence of quotes in a given piece
of text is functionally saying “I wrote
that myself”.
• Slight rephrasing of the original without
use of quotes is basically stealing
someone else’s writing.
• Either completely rephrase and cite the
source of the idea (which usually works
better anyway), or keep the phrasing
intact and put quotes around it.
• Original, from “Mismeasure of Man” by Steven Jay
Gould:
– “The concept of evolution transformed human thought during the
nineteenth century. Nearly every question in the life sciences
was reformulated in its light”.
• Use 1
– Gould makes the case that “the concept of evolution transformed
human thought” (Gould, 1981, pg 113) soon after Darwin
proposed it.
• Use 2
– According to Gould, the idea of evolution changed human
thought during the 1800’s. Almost every question in the life
sciences was reformulated to reflect it (Gould, 1981).
• Use 3
– Gould makes the case that the theory of evolution significantly
altered scientific thought, especially in the life sciences. It not
only provided explanations but caused re-thinking of the
questions. (Gould, 1981).
• Use 2 constitutes plagiarism. Even though the
source is cited, it is evident that the phrasing is
almost exactly lifted from the original, without
quotes.
What should you, or I, do if we
suspect an academic integrity
violation?
• If you are a student, contact the professor of
the course or Jennifer Berenson, who is the
chair of the Academic Integrity Council.
• After discussion, a charge may be made and
a hearing scheduled. Cases are heard by an
Academic Integrity Panel or Board,
depending on the severity of the case. Both
have faculty and student members.
• Penalties imposed by Academic Integrity Council, if “clear and
convincing evidence” is presented
– F in the course (this is the usual minimum penalty)
– XF in the course (denotes an academic integrity failure)
– Academic Integrity probation of at least one term after the term of the
violation
– Academic Integrity suspension of at least one term after the term of the
violation
– Academic Integrity expulsion, with this noted on the student’s transcript
– Restitution
• Appeals may be granted under certain conditions
• Don’t make us sit across the table from you. Nobody
needs this situation.
Case 1
• Debra is taking Sociology 101. One
assignment is a short paper on different
views of the effectiveness of busing as a way
to achieve racial integration. Debra finds a
website with some interesting information.
She selects a lot of the information, pastes it
into a Word document, adds some sentences
and changes a few words. She does not use
quotes around the pasted material, but she
does acknowledge the source of the
information.
Case 2
• In an upper-level Biology class, students
work in pairs for a project, and the pairs
often study together. The professor gives
the class a take-home test but reminds them
not to work together on the test. One pair
have some very similar wrong answers,
which they attribute to using the same set of
notes during the test. The professor charges
them with cheating, but emphasizes that
sharing notes was permissible; she believes
that they actively collaborated on the test
questions.
Case 3
• Zack is in a philosophy class in which he
regularly turns in a journal of his interpretation
of a reading assignment. The journal is graded
and returned; the cumulative journal grade is
worth 10% of his final grade. The professor
realizes that for two entries, his entries are very
similar to an online set of notes on the same
material. Zack admits to having looked up the
information on that site and having used some
of the same wording, but since it wasn’t a test,
he thought it was OK. He didn’t indicate in the
journal that he had used the online notes.
Case 4
• Darlene’s French professor has agreed to give
Darlene an exam a day early. Darlene shows up at
the professor’s office with a pen and a handbag.
She then is taken to a storage room with a desk and
given the exam; the professor leaves. About 20
minutes later, another person enters the room to
access the storage and finds Darlene with her
French notes out in plain sight. At the hearing
Darlene admits to having the notes but says that she
was looking over them before starting the exam.