Academic Integrity Policy

The Meaning of Academic Integrity

As an institution of higher learning, Sacred Heart University places special emphasis on academic integrity, which is a commitment to the fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Only when these values are widely respected and practiced by all members of the University—students, faculty, administrators, and staff—can the University maintain a culture that promotes free exploration of knowledge, constructive debate, genuine learning, effective research, fair assessment of student progress, and development of members’ characters.

These aims of the University require that its members exercise mutual responsibilities. At its core, academic integrity is secured by a principled commitment to carry out these responsibilities, not by rules and penalties. Students and faculty should strive to create an academic environment that is honest, fair, and respectful of all. They do this by evaluating others’ work fairly, by responding to others’ ideas critically yet courteously, by respecting others’ intellectual and physical property, and by nurturing the values of academic integrity in all contexts of university life.

Appropriate disciplinary action will be taken for violations of academic integrity, including plagiarism, cheating, any use of materials for an assignment or exam that is not permitted by the instructor, and theft or mutilation of intellectual materials or other University equipment. Faculty will assign failing grades for violations of the University’s policy on academic integrity and students may immediately receive an F for a course in which they commit a violation. Violations of academic integrity are kept on file; second violations will bring additional sanctions, up to dismissal from the University. For any disciplinary action, the University affords the student the right of due process in an appeals procedure. All matriculated students will be provided with a full description of the University’s standards for academic integrity, consequences for violations, and the appeals procedure.

Mutual Responsibilities of Faculty & Students

Sacred Heart University faculty have an ethical and professional obligation to take the following steps to promote academic integrity among students:

Refer in course syllabi to the University’s policy on academic integrity.
Clearly explicate in course syllabi behaviors and actions that constitute academic dishonesty, especially those that may be specific to the assignments of the course.
Clearly explicate in course syllabi consequences for violations of academic integrity.
Reinforce these expectations and consequences periodically during the semester, such as when giving information for assignments.
Model and, where appropriate, teach students those scholarly practices that embody academic integrity.
Abide by this policy on academic integrity, including its reporting requirements.

Sacred Heart University students have the ethical obligation to take these steps to promote academic integrity among their peers:

Act with integrity in all their coursework.
Abide by this policy on academic integrity and any policies established by their professors and the department in which they are majoring.
Refuse to share materials with peers for cheating, or that they believe will be used for cheating.
Take care with their own papers, tests, computer files, etc., lest these be stolen or appropriated by others.
Notify the professor of a course if they become aware that any form of cheating or plagiarism has occurred.

Such notification is not dishonorable but maintains an academic environment in which all students are evaluated fairly for their work; it may also protect a student from a charge of dishonesty (if, for instance, the student’s work was appropriated by another).

Violations of Academic Integrity

Academic integrity can flourish only when members of the University voluntarily govern their personal behavior by high ethical standards. However, it is also crucial for the University to define the boundaries of ethical behavior and to prohibit attacks on the principles of academic integrity. Policies that govern faculty members’ ethical responsibilities are treated in the Faculty Handbook. Students’ ethical responsibilities are governed by the policy stated here. Departments and programs at the University may supplement this policy with additional guidelines and faculty members may specify additional guidelines in the syllabi for their classes. Students must adhere to such guidelines as well as to university-wide policy.

All Sacred Heart University students in all degree programs are prohibited from engaging in the following types of behavior:

Cheating

Forms of cheating include but are not limited to:

Having unpermitted notes during any exam or quiz. Only materials that a professor explicitly instructs students that they may use during an examination are permitted.
Copying from other students during any exam or quiz.
Having unpermitted prior knowledge of any exam or quiz.
Copying or rewriting any homework or lab assignment from another student or borrowing information for such assignments with the intention of presenting that work as one’s own.
Using unpermitted materials or taking information from other students for a take-home exam. A take-home exam is an exam; therefore, it requires independent work. Students should follow the procedures given by the professor.

These standards require independent work by a student, except for those contexts where professors have specified forms of permitted collaboration with other students or with external sources, such as artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. If no form of collaboration has been specified, students must assume that none is permitted. Because assignments that involve group-based work can cause students to question what forms of collaboration are proper, they should seek guidance from their professors in all cases of doubt. Professors should make clear to students what forms of collaboration are permissible and impermissible. The standards on cheating do not prohibit students from studying together or from tutoring each other.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is any act of misrepresenting the sources of one’s information and ideas. When authoring essays, it is the act of presenting another person’s or AI-generated written words or ideas as one’s own. When reporting experimental work, it includes the acts of falsifying data and presenting another’s data as one’s own. In speeches, it involves quoting passages of others’ speeches or written words without mention of the author. Plagiarism is also possible in art and music if one makes use of a work of art or music in a way that violates the standards of attribution in those fields or is AI-generated when use of AI is prohibited by the professor.

Plagiarism may be willful, as when a student knowingly copies a source without attribution, or negligent, as when a student fails to cite sources properly. Both willful and negligent instances of plagiarism are subject to penalty—in part because professors must judge the result of a student’s work, not his or her intentions, and in part because students are expected to know and follow the standards for proper citation of sources.

Forms of plagiarism therefore include but are not limited to:

Copying whole papers or passages from another student or from any source.
Allowing another student to copy or submit one’s work.
Buying or obtaining a paper from any source, including term-paper sellers and Internet sources, and submitting that paper or passages of it as one’s own work.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate written responses or ideas when not explicitly allowed by the instructor and submitting that content as one’s own work.
Pasting a passage from the Internet or any computer source into one’s paper without quoting and attributing the passage.
Fabricating or falsifying a bibliography.
Falsifying one’s results in scientific experiments, whether through fabrication or copying them from another source.
Appropriating another person’s computer programming work for submission as an assignment.
When creating a webpage, film, or musical composition as a course assignment, failing to attribute material that comes from other media or failing to obtain proper permission for the use of such material.
Any other appropriation of another’s intellectual property without proper attribution.
Submitting an assignment that one wrote during a previous semester or submitting the same assignment for more than one class simultaneously. This action includes reusing substantial portions of previously written work for a current assignment. (Students who are unsure of what work of their own they may use in preparing an assignment should consult their professors.) Assignments must be written the semester in which they are assigned unless a professor approves of the use of previousl written material with specific guidelines. Assignments may only be submitted for credit in a single course unless professors in multiple courses are informed of and approve of the multiple submissions.

Improper citation of sources occurs when a student presents all sources used in preparing a paper but fails to attribute quotations and information from those sources in the paper's body. Specific examples include:

Failure to use quotation marks for direct quotes or for an author’s distinctive phrases. (A rule of thumb to follow is that five or more words in succession from a source must be enclosed in quotation marks.)
Following an author’s structure of writing and ideas but rephrasing the sentences partially to give the impression that the whole passage reflects the student’s structure and ideas. This includes text generated by artificial intelligence, unless explicitly allowed by the instructor.
Failure to give page numbers for quotations or for other information that did not originate with the student.

The above examples may also be considered plagiarism. Because they sometimes do not involve willful misrepresentation, professors may have more lenient policies in dealing with them. Yet students should strive to cite all information properly and should note that professors have the discretion to treat these cases as seriously as the forms of plagiarism listed above.

Sanctions for Violations of Academic Integrity

When a faculty member encounters a possible violation of academic integrity, they should address the matter with the student within ten working days, after collecting whatever evidence may be available. The faculty member has the right to ask the student to provide evidence about sources or make other reasonable requests related to the work.

Cases of improper citation are a matter of faculty discretion. If the faculty member concludes that a student has violated the academic integrity policy, they may immediately assign a sanction of a failing grade for the assignment. They may also assign the student a grade of F for the course. This determination must be sent in writing by the faculty member to the student within ten working days after addressing the matter with them.

The faculty member will report the incident with supporting documentation and the sanction imposed to the Office of the Provost, which tracks academic integrity violations. Subsequently, the Office of Provost will review the violation and send an official written letter via email acknowledging the violation and the sanction imposed to the student, the student’s College, and the student’s advisor within ten working days.

The timeline outlined herein applies under normal circumstances and barring institutional exigencies.

Other Violations

Other forms of unethical behavior that disrupt the processes of learning, teaching, and research include:

Providing to other students exams or papers of one’s own or from any source with the reasonable expectation that these will be used for the purpose of cheating or plagiarism.
Maintaining a file of exams or papers with the reasonable expectation that these will be used for the purpose of cheating or plagiarism.
Theft and defacement of library materials.
Theft of other students’ notes, papers, homework and textbooks.
Posting another person’s work on the Internet without that person’s permission.

Student Appeals Process

The student who maintains that he or she did not violate the policy should first attempt a resolution with the faculty member. This discussion should occur during the initial meeting between faculty and student. The student may appeal his or her case in writing with supporting evidence to the department chair or program director of the faculty member involved within thirty working days. The chair or program director will consult with the faculty member in an attempt to resolve the matter. The outcome will be sent in writing from the chair to the student within thirty working days from the appeal received.

If the resolution is not satisfactory to the student, he or she may submit a written appeal to the dean of the college in which the course was taken, explaining how the work in question is in compliance with the policy and providing relevant supporting documentation. The appeal must be presented to the dean of the college within thirty working days of the notification being sent to the student from the chair or program director.

If the dean (or the dean’s designee) finds that the appeal has merit, he or she has thirty working days to convene an appeal committee. This committee will consist of three faculty members: one selected by the student, one selected by the faculty member who taught the course, and one selected by the dean. After reviewing all documented evidence, this committee will decide whether the grade should stand or be reviewed by the faculty member. A letter explaining the committee’s decision will be sent to the dean within ten working days after it meets. The dean will then have ten working days to inform the student of the findings and determine the final outcome. This concludes the process.

Second and Subsequent Violations

After confirmation of a second violation, the Office of the Provost will refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Academic Integrity.

The purpose of this committee is not to reconsider the student’s guilt or innocence, but to recommend any additional sanctions. The sanction imposed by the committee might include dismissal from the University for one or two semesters or a complete expulsion from the University. The committee will have available to it the full documentation of the student’s previous violation of academic integrity and the authority to request additional information and documentation as warranted.

Faculty members of this committee will be elected from each College at the University for two-year terms in elections that it holds. The committee will also include the Dean of Students as a non-voting member.

The student will have an opportunity to address the committee if he or she wishes. The student may be accompanied by an advocate who is a current employee of the University who may not act as the student’s legal counsel. No external advocates may be present during the student meeting with the committee. The committee might also wish to hear from the student’s academic advisor and the chair or program director of the student’s major department(s).

The committee will make a recommendation of sanction to the dean of the student’s college, who will in turn make a recommendation to the provost. The decision of the provost will be final, after which point, he or she will have ten working days to send final notification to the student and all appropriate parties.

The timeline outlined herein applies under normal circumstances and barring institutional exigencies.

Violations Outside of a Course

When a student is suspected of having violated academic integrity by an action that did not occur in the context of a course (see section above, Other Violations), the student, faculty, staff, or administrator who suspects the violation and has plausible evidence should present this information to the Dean of Students. The Dean of Students will decide how to pursue the matter, and the student will have the right to appeal any consequences according to the Student Handbook.