Academic Dishonesty

[The following statement was copied from the University of Colorado Graduate School Handbook (pp.41-42). There is no Section III.]

Academic Dishonesty

The maintenance of the highest standards of intellectual honesty is the concern of every student and faculty member in the Graduate School. The faculty is committed to imposing appropriate sanctions for breaches of academic honesty.

Academic dishonesty can occur in many ways. Some common forms of academic dishonesty are:

I. Plagiarism

Each student is expected to present his or her own work. All papers, examinations, and other assignments must be original or explicit acknowledgement must be given for the use of other persons' ideas or language. Examples of plagiarism as it might occur in term papers, research papers, laboratory reports, and other written assignments are listed below.

  1. Failure to indicate quoted materials: all work which is quoted directly from a source should be properly denoted and followed by a proper reference giving the exact page or pages from which the quote is taken. Failure to do so, even if a footnote source is provided, is plagiarism.
  2. Failure to document ideas: When a student uses one or more ideas from and/or paraphrases a source, he or she must give the exact page or pages from which the ideas or paraphrasing were taken. Failure to provide an exact reference is plagiarism.
  3. False documentation: Falsifying or inventing sources or page references is plagiarism.

Ideas that are part of the general fund of human knowledge (e.g., George Washington was the first president of the United States; Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity,) need not be documented in student papers. Students are encouraged to ascertain from the instructor in each class what the instructor's discipline considers to be information included in this provision.

II. Cheating on Examinations

Students are expected to present their own work in all examinations. Some examples of cheating as it might occur in examinations are as follows:

  1. Copying the work of another student during an examination;
  2. Permitting another student to copy one's work during an examination;
  3. Possessing unauthorized notes, crib sheets, additional sources of information, or other materials during an examination;
  4. Writing the answer to an exam question outside of class and submitting that answer as part of an in-class exam;
  5. Taking an examination for another student;
  6. Having an examination taken by a second party;
  7. Presenting forged or false statements for the purpose of enabling a student to take advantage of such University policies as Incomplete, Pass/Fail, and Late Withdrawal;
  8. Altering another student's examination, term paper, or other assignment;
  9. Falsifying data.

IV. Sanctions to be imposed

All breaches of academic dishonesty are to be reported to the Associate Dean of the Graduate School and to the designated graduate administrator of the department or chair of the appropriate graduate committee.

The report to the Associate Dean shall be in writing and shall include: (1) circumstances surrounding the incident in question; (2) evidence against the student, (3) results of the interview in which the allegation was presented; and (4) the sanction to be imposed.

  1. If the act of academic dishonesty occurred in a course, the minimum sanction available to a faculty member is to award an F on the assignment or examination in which the dishonesty occurred. (The maximum sanction available to a faculty member is to award an F for the course in which the dishonesty occurred.)
  2. If the act of academic dishonesty occurred in the preliminary or comprehensive examination, the minimum sanction available is failure of the examination.
  3. If the act of academic dishonesty occurred in the collection of primary data, the preparation and/or writing of a thesis, the minimum sanction available is rejection of the thesis.

In addition to the above sanctions, cases may be referred to the Committee on Academic Ethics with a specific request that the Committee consider imposing additional sanctions such as suspension and expulsion.

NOTE: The "Graduate School Statement on Academic Dishonesty" is the same in content and form as the "College of Arts and Sciences Statement on Academic Dishonesty," with the exception of changes in wording of certain sections and additions to Section IV. SANCTIONS TO BE IMPOSED.