Summary of Academic Integrity Policy
The UR Student Code of Conduct policy describes acts of academic dishonesty and academic misconduct investigation procedures and processes. It also explains students’ responsibilities and rights. The policy prescribes “progressive discipline” in the case of repeat offences.
Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the principles of academic integrity as outlined in the policy and they are required to abide by these principles.
Students can adhere to academic integrity by being honest and ensuring that any grades they acquire result from their own work and effort, acting ethically, being accountable and citing the work of others.
Academic misconduct includes acts that breach the general principles of academic integrity. There are different forms of academic misconduct; all are considered serious offences within the University community. Examples of academic misconduct include but are not limited to: cheating on tests and examinations; plagiarism; falsifying lab results; having someone else do a course assignment or write a test on their behalf; helping another student commit an act of academic misconduct; purchasing an essay or paper for the purpose of submitting as a course assignment; sharing course material with homework help or tutoring websites without the authorization of the owner of those materials, usually the course instructor; and violating the instructor’s instructions regarding group assignments and collaborating with another student or a group of students on individual assignments.
Penalties for acts of academic dishonesty are determined on a case-by-case basis with consideration for similar incidents, the extent of the act of misconduct, and first or repeat offence following the principle of progressive discipline. According to the principle of progressive discipline, when it is decided that an act of academic misconduct has occurred, the penalty applied will increase in severity for the second and subsequent offences and will take into consideration the seriousness or extent of the misconduct.
The full policy can be found in the Student Code of Conduct and Right to Appeal.
Academic Misconduct Process
The following graphic describes the process for reporting instances of academic misconduct.
An accessible text version of this graphic is also available for download as a Word document.