Academic Integrity

Sharing behaviours among students can be linked to several acts of academic integrity violations, including plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and aiding academic dishonesty. But not all of these behaviours occur with the intent to deceive or cheat.

Course Sharing Sites

Several sites exist that entice students to share course materials and assignments in order to gain access or credits that the student can then use to access other services within the site. This may include lecture notes, presentations, tests, rubrics, and completed assignments. In some cases, students gain access to past assignments from these sites without the knowledge of the student who uploaded the information. Examples of these sites include CourseHero, OneClass, and StuDocs.

Note: If you locate college-owned material on these sites please advise the college by reporting to copyright@flemingcollege.ca

Social Media Sites

Students use several different social media applications to stay connected and share information with classmates. It is always important to discuss appropriate sharing behaviours to maintain both personal safety and academic integrity. 

Contract Cheating is defined as the act of obtaining original work produced for a student, which they then submit as if this were their own work. It often involves a payment of some kind, but not always. The following presentation was given by Marcia Steeves in January 2021 to shed light on to the contract cheating industry. A recording of this presentation is available here.

Here are a number of resources that may be of interest to you:

• Insights on Academic Integrity from a Conflict Resolution Lens, ICAI - Helpful advice on meeting with students about violations
• Academic Integrity Council of Ontario (AICO)
• International Centre for Academic Integrity (ICAI)
• Canadian Perspectives on Academic Integrity [Journal]
• International Journal of Educational Integrity [Journal]

To find out if the student has a previous violation, go to the Student Services Centre in Evolve.

Beside the student’s ID number and name at the top of the page there may be a red circle indicator with a line through it. This is a negative service indicator and MAY indicate the students has a previous integrity violation.

If you see a red service indicator symbol, click on the symbol to be taken to the violation information. This is where you will find information about any previous violations.

Need further assistance?
Contact the Academic Integrity Office at academicintegrity@flemingcollege.ca