Academic integrity is the responsibility of all Valdosta State University employees and students. Faculty members should promote academic integrity by including clear instruction on the components of academic integrity and clearly defining the penalties for cheating and plagiarism in their course syllabi. Students are responsible for knowing and abiding by the Academic Integrity Policy as set forth in this Student Code of Conduct and the faculty members' syllabi. All students are expected to do their own work and to uphold the highest standard of academic integrity.

A.  Academic Integrity Violations

Cheating and plagiarism are academic integrity violations. Additional violations may be added as deemed appropriate. The following academic integrity violations are not to be considered all-inclusive:

  1. No student shall use or attempt to use unauthorized materials or devices to aid in achieving a better grade on a component of any class.
  2. No student shall receive or give or attempt to receive or give assistance not authorized by the instructor in the preparation of an essay, laboratory report, examination, or other assignment included in any academic course.
  3. No student shall take or attempt to take, steal, or otherwise procure in an unauthorized manner any material pertaining to the content of a class, including but not limited to tests, examinations, laboratory equipment, and class records.
  4. No student shall sell, give, lend, or otherwise furnish to any unauthorized person material which can be shown to contain the questions or answers to any examinations scheduled to be given at any subsequent date in any course of study offered by the University, without authorization from the University.
  5. No student shall engage in plagiarism, which is presenting the words or ideas of another person as if they were the student's own. Essays, term papers, laboratory reports, tests, online writing assignments, and other similar requirements must be the work of the student submitting them. Students should also check with instructors before submitting work written for another class or assignment. In some cases, instructors may consider this work unoriginal and therefore subject to academic integrity penalties. Some typical examples of plagiarism are:
    1. Submitting an assignment as if it were one's own work when, in fact, it is at least partly or entirely the work of another.
    2. Submitting a work that has been purchased or otherwise obtained from an Internet source or another source.
    3. Incorporating the words or ideas of an author into one's paper without giving the author due credit, e.g., when direct quotations are used, they must be indicated, and when the ideas of another are incorporated in the paper they must be appropriately acknowledged.
  6. No student shall use AI, unless assigned by a faculty member, in order to generate text, summaries, images, or other materials and submit them as their own work.








 

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