J. Blustein

CS3172 > Course > Syllabus > Appendix: Academic Integrity

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Statement on Academic Integrity*

* See below for credit.

At Dalhousie University, we respect the values of academic integrity: honesty, trust, fairness, responsibility and respect. As a Dalhousie student and a member of the academic community, you are expected to abide by these values and the policies which enforce them.

What is academic integrity?

Academic integrity is ensuring that any work you submit is your own and that you have given appropriate acknowledgement to any sources that you consulted. Dalhousie University defines plagiarism as the submission or presentation of the work of another as if it were one's own. Plagiarism is considered a serious academic offence which may lead to the assignment of a failing grade, suspension or expulsion from the University. (from Undergraduate Calendar (2008/2009) section on Intellectual Honesty, p. 23).

Some examples of plagiarism are:

How is plagiarism detected?

Professors and TAs are highly skilled at recognizing discrepancies between writing styles, inappropriate citations, and obvious word-for-word copying. In addition, the Senate has affirmed the right of any instructor to require that student papers be submitted in both written and digital format, and to submit any paper to an originality check such as that performed by Turnitin.com for essay papers, and MOSS for software code. Copies of student essay papers checked by this process will be retained by Turnitin.com.

What happens if I am accused of plagiarism?

Instructors are required to forward any suspected cases of plagiarism to the Academic Integrity Officer (AIO) for the Faculty. You will be informed of the allegation by the AIO and a meeting will be convened. You may contact the Dalhousie Student Advocacy Service who will be able to assist you in preparing a defence. Until the case is resolved, your final grade will be an PND. If you are judged to have committed an offence, penalties may include a loss of credit, F in a course, suspension or expulsion from the University, or even the revocation of a degree (for more information see Dalhousie's Academic Integrity website).

How can I avoid plagiarism?

Specifics for CSCI 3172

You must do your own work and provide proper credit when quoting or paraphrasing the work of others. This policy applies equally to text, images, and program code. You may use any standard style guide you wish so long as you use it consistently.

Webpages

When citing webpages you must include the following details:

  1. the address of the webpage,
  2. the author of the webpage or a note that it is anonymous,
  3. the date that the page was last updated or, if that is not available, the date that you read the page and a note to that effect.
Images

Use of images (e.g. logos and icons) by someone else is essentially the same as quoting text. You must provide full citation information for any image that is not your own, even if the image is royalty free, you purchased rights to use it, or it includes the trademark symbol or registered trademark symbol ®.

If you alter an image by someone else (for example by cropping or blurring it) or you combine two or more images to make a new image then you must identify the source of the original images (just as though you had used them without alteration) and note that you have modified, combined, or modified and combined the images.

Algorithms and Software Code

The use of idea from another person must be accompanied by appropriate credit to that person and the location where the idea appeared (in print, on the WWW, in conversation, etc.):

If an idea was represented in program code (or pseudocode) then
you must give credit for it just as if you copied it into an essay;
If you translated the idea from pseudocode or a different programming language then
you must include a note to that effect as part of the citation you make to the source you used;
If you copied the code directly without changing the programming language then
you have done the equivalent of quoting text, so you must give credit just as you would for a quotation.
Won't those long URLs make my webpages ugly or unusable?

You must provide all of the details for everything you use but you don't have to display all of those details on the same webpage where the text, images, code, etc. are being used. Three simple alternative solutions that will suffice for many assignments are:

In all circumstances, it is the student's responsbility to ensure that full credit is given and that it is clear whom is being credited for what.

Where can I turn for help?

Academic Integrity website – http://academicintegrity.dal.ca
Links to policies, definitions, online tutorials, tips on citing and paraphrasing
Writing Centre – http://writingcentre.dal.ca
Proofreading, writing styles, citations
Dalhousie Libraries – http://www.library.dal.ca/How/Classes
Workshops, online tutorials, citation guides, Assignment Calculator, RefWorks

See Also

Slides from a presentation about Academic Integrity to the class on 30 September 2008 by Ms. Nowakowski are online. Those slides are © copyright by her.


Credit

The document is adapted from the original version which is from the Faculty Resources section of Dalhousie University's Academic Integrity website (<URL:http://academicintegrity.dal.ca/Faculty%20Resources/index.php>) entitled Academic Integrity Statement for Syllabus. The original is dated 16 July 2008. It was copied on 25 September 2008.