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Student Academic Integrity Resources: What Happens After a Violation?

What happens after a violation?

Policy and Procedures

The full policy and procedures can be found here:

Academic Integrity Policy 

Academic Integrity Procedure

Have a Question on Academic Integrity?

We are here to help! Student Services has a number of academic skill resources and assistance for you. Contact Marcia Steeves, Academic Integrity and Copyright Officer, for more information.

If your faculty member suspects a violation, they will determine what level the violation falls under. The level of the violation determines what academic consequences may be considered and outline that an educational sanction must also be completed.

Below you will find the information for each violation level and information about signing up for your assigned education module or workshop.

Violation Levels and Academic Sanctions

Level 1 violations may be minor in nature and affect a small portion of the assessment work in question.

Examples (not intended to be an exhaustive list):

  • Failure to acknowledge working with another student, unless the instructor explicitly authorizes such work
  • Failure to cite or give proper acknowledgement in a small/minor portion of the assignment

Mandatory Sanctions 

  1. Education Sanction (listed below), AND
  2. at least one of the following sanctions:
    • Written Warning (by way of submitting the Violation Form)
    • Resubmission of the original assessment piece.
    • Submission of a new assessment piece
    • A portion of assessment work receives a grade of “0”
    • A penalty sanctioned at the discretion of faculty that results in a reduced overall grade
    • Or, another sanction as deemed appropriate by the faculty.

Level 2 violations are of a more serious or extensive nature than the ones described in Type 1 or are those that affect a larger or more significant portion of the assessment. 

Examples (not intended to be an exhaustive list):

  • Complete lack of in-text citation and / or reference of sources in required format.
  • Submitting the same work, or major portions thereof, to satisfy the requirements of more than one course without permission from the instructor.
  • Cheating during a test, exam or other types of academic assessment (this could include using prohibited materials such as books, notes, calculators, or other electronic devices).
  • Receiving assistance from others (e.g. research, statistical, computer programming, field data collection help, or technical art/design production help) that constitutes an essential element in the undertaking without acknowledging such assistance in a paper, examination, or project.

Mandatory Sanctions

  1. Education Sanction (listed below), AND
  2. A grade of zero (0) on the assignment.

Level 3 violations affect a significant portion of the assessment work, involve premeditation, and/or students who have repeated Type 1 and Type 2 violations. 

Examples (not intended to be an exhaustive list):

  • A repeat of Type 1 or 2 violations.
  • Falsification of data, and/or deliberately altering material (e.g. citing a source that does not exist).
  • Collaborating before an exam to develop methods of exchanging information and implementation thereof.
  • Use or distribution of material which has been acquired through unauthorized means.

Mandatory Sanctions

  1. Education Sanction (listed below), AND
  2. A grade of zero (0) for the course.

Level 4 violations are reserved for the most serious breaches of academic integrity and/or incidents preceded by repeated violations at all previous levels.

Examples (not intended to be an exhaustive list):

  • A repeat of a Type 3 violation.
  • Providing another student with login information in an attempt to have that person complete the assessment work (false impersonation).
  • Infractions of academic integrity resembling criminal activity (e.g. forging a grade form, stealing an examination, buying an exam, falsifying a transcript).
  • False impersonation in an exam.
  • Sabotaging another student’s work through actions designed to prevent the student from successfully completing an assignment.

Mandatory Sanctions

  1. Education Sanction (listed below), AND
  2. Suspension from the College for a minimum of one semester or regular program delivery. Faculty may choose Option ‘a’ or ‘b’:
    a. One to Three Semesters: Must be approved by the Dean of the applicable School.
    b. Three or More Semesters: Must be approved by the Dean in consultation with the Vice-President Academic.

Educational Sanctions

Educational sanctions are in place to help you learn from violations and assist you in avoiding similar violations in the future. Your faculty will direct you on which sanction they want you to complete and a deadline for completing this sanction. See below for information on registering for the different options available.

Your faculty may assign one of the available learning modules to you as an educational sanction. Follow the links below to self-enroll and complete by the deadline you have been given.

Your faculty may assign one of the many Information Literacy Workshops to you as an educational sanction. These workshops are also available to students who simply want to learn how to cite and research better. Here are some of the ones commonly assigned:

Avoiding Plagiarism - This workshop covers plagiarism and provides hands-on activities on avoiding plagiarism and working with citations.

APA Citations for Beginners - Laying the foundation for successful citation-building you will gain an understanding of the use of in-text citations, identify different source formats and the parts of a citation, and practice using a citation guide to build basic citations.

Advanced APA Citations - Providing practice for those with the needed basic skills to look at more complex sources as well as using the MS Word citation tool.

Register for available workshops here.

 

In some cases, your faculty may assign a one-on-one meeting with a resource specialist to ensure that you have a good understanding of the violation that has occurred and also to provide you assistance to ensure that further violations are avoided.

One-on-one sessions can be booked by contacting Marcia Steeves, the Academic Integrity and Copyright Officer.

One-on-ones with Tutoring or Learning Strategy Advisors can be made online.

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