TAMU - Rules and Procedures

Graphics, design products, and visual aids:

All graphics, design products, and visual aids from another creator used in academic assignments must reference the source of the material

Examples of Falsification

Changing the measurements in an experiment in a laboratory exercise so as to obtain results more closely conforming to theoretically expected values.

Direct Quotation:

Every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or appropriate indentation and must be properly acknowledged in the text by citation or in a footnote or endnote

Misconduct research or scholarship includes what?

Fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, reviewing, or reporting research

Common knowledge:

Generally known facts such as the names of leaders of prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc., basic historical information. Does not require citation

Misconduct does not include what?

Honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data

Special note on Group Projects

If someone in a group commits academic misconduct, the entire group could be held responsible for it as well

Borrowed facts:

Information gained in reading or research, which is not common knowledge, must be acknowledged

Style Guides

Instructors are responsible for identifying any specific style/format requirement for the course

Complicity

Intentionally or knowingly helping, or attempting to help, another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.

Cheating

Intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, notes, study aids or other devices or materials in any academic exercise

Fabrication

Making up data or results, and recording or reporting them; submitting fabricated documents

Falsification

Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.

Works consulted:

Materials that add only to a general understanding of a subject may be acknowledged in the bibliography, and need not be footnoted or end-noted. The practice of citing unused works is sometimes referred to as "padding"

Footnotes, endnotes, and in-text citations:

One footnote, endnote, or in-text citation is usually enough to acknowledge indebtedness when a number of connected sentences are drawn from one source

Paraphrase:

Prompt acknowledgment is required when material from another source is paraphrased or summarized, in whole or in part, in one's own words

Other types of conduct concerns

Student rule violations outside of the academic classroom environment are reported through Student Conflict Resolution Services

University Rules on Research:

Students involved in conducting research and/or scholarly activities at Texas A&M University must also adhere to standards set forth in University Rule 15.99.03.M1 - Responsible Conduct in Research and Scholarship

Abuse and Misuse of Access and Unauthorized Access:

Students may not abuse or misuse computer access or gain unauthorized access to information in any academic exercise

Violation of Departmental or College Rules:

Students may not violate any announced departmental or college rule relating to academic matters

What should happen when an instructor asks for proof?

Students must be able to produce proof that the item submitted is indeed the work of that student inability to authenticate one's work - Sufficient grounds to initiate an academic dishonesty case

Multiple Submissions

Submitting substantial portions of the same work (including oral reports) for credit more than once without authorization from the instructor of the class for which the student submits the work.

Plagiarism

The appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit

Tell Somebody Reporting Process

To report a behavioral concern on the part of a member of the student body, faculty, or staff

Texas A&M University Systems Risk, Fraud, and Misconduct Hotline

To report instances of suspected waste, fraud, or a suspected ethics violation

Instructors should do what at the beginning of each year?

• All syllabi shall contain a section that states the Aggie Honor Code and refers the student to the Aggie Honor System Rules and Procedures on the web. • Open discussion about academic integrity with students in their courses early in the semester • Share in the responsibility and authority to challenge and make known acts that violate the Aggie Code of Honor. • Expected to adhere to the policy pertaining to the reporting and adjudication of violations of the Aggie Code of Honor. • Initiating formal procedures is a necessary and obligatory component of this shared responsibility

Community Responsibility

• Apathy or acquiescence in the presence of academic dishonesty is not a neutral act • Failure to confront and deter it will reinforce, perpetuate, and enlarge the scope of such misconduct • Various methods of encouraging integrity exist, such as setting an example for new students, education through student organizations, and student-to-student moral suasion. • Students have the responsibility to confront their peers engaging in compromising situations to report the matter to the Aggie Honor System Office

What are examples of cheating?

• During an examination, looking at another student's examination or using external aids • Having others conduct research or prepare work without advance authorization from the instructor. • Acquiring answers for any assigned work or examination from any unauthorized source. • Collaborating with other students in the completion of assigned work, unless specifically authorized by the instructor teaching the course

Examples of Plagiarism

• Intentionally, knowingly, or carelessly presenting the work of another as one's own • Failing to credit sources used in a work product in an attempt to pass off the work as one's own • Attempting to receive credit for work performed by another, • Failing to cite the World Wide Web, databases and other electronic resources if they are utilized in any way as resource material in an academic exercise

Examples of Complicity

• Knowingly allowing another to copy from one's paper during an examination or test • Distributing test questions or substantive information about the test without the instructor's permission • Collaborating on academic work knowing that the collaboration will not be reported • Taking an examination or test for another student • Signing another's name on an academic exercise or attendance sheet • Conspiring or agreeing with one or more persons to commit, or to attempt to commit, any act of scholastic dishonesty

General information pertaining to plagiarism

• Style Guides • Direct Quotation • Paraphrase • Borrowed facts • Common knowledge • Works consulted • Footnotes, endnotes, and in-text citations • Graphics, design products, and visual aids

Examples of Multiple Submissions

• Submitting the same work for credit in more than one course without the instructor's permission • Making revisions in a paper or report that has been submitted in one class and submitting it for credit in another class without the instructor's permission • Representing group work done in one class as one's own work for the purpose of using it in another class

Examples of Fabrication

• The intentional invention and unauthorized alteration of any information or citation in any academic exercise. • Using "invented" information in any laboratory experiment, report of results or academic exercise. • Failing to acknowledge the actual source from which cited information was obtained. • Changing information on tests, quizzes, examinations, reports, or any other material that has been graded and resubmitting it as original for the purpose of improving the grade on that material. • Providing a fabricated document to any University employee in order to obtain an excused absence or to satisfy a course requirement