Academic Dishonesty Policy

PLU STUDENT CONDUCT: Academic Dishonesty Policy

PLU defines Academic Dishonesty as violating procedures prescribed to protect the integrity of an assignment, test, or other evaluation. The most common forms of academic dishonesty are cheating and plagiarism.
Cheating includes, but is not limited to:

- Submitting material that is not yours as part of your course performance, such as submitting a downloaded paper off of the Internet; or
- Using information or devices not allowed by the instructor (such as formulas or a computer program or data); or unauthorized materials (such as a copy of an examination before it is given); or
- Fabricating information, such as data for a lab report; or
- Collaborating with others on assignments without the instructor's consent; or
- Cooperating with or helping another student to cheat; or

- Other forms of dishonest behavior, such as having another person take an exam for you, altering exam answers and requesting the exam be re-graded, or communicating with anyone other than a proctor or instructor during an exam.

Plagiarism is the act of using any source (published, unpublished, or one's own) that appears in or directly influences one's own work without properly identifying it, such as (but not limited to):

- Directly quoting the words of others without attribution and without using quotation marks or other accepted formats to identify them; or
- Using any course work previously produced by the same student without prior approval from the current instructor; or,
- Using altered wording, materials, or ideas of others without properly identifying their source; or
- Representing an idea or strategy that is significant in one's own work as one's own when it comes from someone else.

If a student is unsure about something that s/he wants to do or the proper use of materials, it is the student's responsibility to ask the instructor for clarification.


Academic Dishonesty Hearing Panel

The purpose of an ADHP is to determine whether a student is responsible for academic dishonesty as described in the U niversity's Academic Integrity policy. ADHP hearings are structured educational discussions, which focus on the student's alleged misconduct within the university community.

ADHPs are authorized to review and make decisions regarding allegations of misconduct brought by instructors, appeals from a student whose instructor has imposed penalties on him or her, student contests of the filing of an ADRF by a professor, and/or multiple alleged infractions of the policy, as identified by the Associate Director for Student Conduct.

For the student, these include:
- The right to receive a written notice of the date, time and place of the ADHP hearing and a copy of the relevant Academic Dishonesty Report Form, at least 48-hours in advance of the ADHP;
- The right to have an individual ADHP hearing if more than one student is charged with misconduct;
- The right to request disqualification of any ADHP member he/she believes to be biased. Final determination of disqualification is made by the Campus Life Committee chair;
- The right to have witnesses with direct knowledge of the incident in question speak on his/her behalf (character witnesses are not permitted);
- The right to have a support person who is a non-familial student, staff member, or faculty member of the university community (except a lawyer) assist them in the proceedings. A support person who accompanies a student is present for emotional support only and may not speak on the student's behalf;
- The right to fair and impartial decision-makers;
- The right to a written copy of the ADHP's decision;
- The right to a self-initiated appeal.