Academic Honesty

In all academic programs, the student’s work is expected to be his or her own original work. The requirements for adherence to this principle escalate at each academic degree level. What this means is that by the time a student reaches graduate studies, s/he is required to understand and apply the principles of academic honesty in all of his/her work.

The Grand Canyon University Academic Catalog (Spring, 2006) clearly explains the expectations for academic honesty at GCU:

As indicated in the Code of Conduct, all students and instructors are expected to possess a high standard of conduct and personal integrity in the classroom. Academic dishonesty is defined as any act of deception in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty has many forms and includes but is not limited to the following:

1. Cheating, attempting to cheat, or assisting others to cheat, including dishonest activity or unauthorized use of any resource or materials in any academic exercise
2. Fabricating or inventing any information that applies to an academic exercise or University investigation
3. Plagiarizing, intentionally or unintentionally, the words, works, or ideas of others and representing them as one’s own in any academic exercise
4. Knowingly violating copyright laws and regulations
5. Violating the University’s policies and regulations pertaining to the use and propriety of the Grand Canyon University network, networking facilities, computer use, or platform access
6. Falsely representing one’s identity or the identity of another as one’s own and to include but not limited to incorporating ideas or verbatim use of published materials without proper citations and acknowledgement, paraphrasing or summarizing another person’s work without proper citation and acknowledgement, using electronically stored or transmitted work without proper citation and acknowledgement, or submitting works stored or transmitted electronically as one’s own

Acts of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, are to be reported to the University and to the offending student(s) immediately upon discovery. The in-class penalty for academic dishonesty is determined by the instructor, and the instructor may recommend a University-level penalty. An in-class penalty may include, but is not limited to, requiring a rewrite of the assignment or paper with or without point deductions, awarding no or limited credits for a specific assignment or paper, or awarding a failing grade for the course. Note that an instructor may not prevent a student from attending or completing a course as this would be a University-level decision. A University-level penalty may include, but is not limited to, awarding a failing grade for the course, removing a student from class, or suspension or expulsion from the University.

All reports of academic dishonesty are filed with the Office of Academic Affairs, which reviews the report as well as any history of prior reports of academic dishonesty. This office then notifies the student if the University intends to take further action as a result of the particular report or as a result of the history of offenses. For more information, visit Canyon Cruiser at http://my.gcu.edu. (p. 16)

Plagiarism is generally thought of as taking credit for someone else’s work either by intent or by not properly citing the work of other researchers. Proper citing and referencing is the critical first step to avoiding plagiarism. Paraphrasing and proper citation is necessary for conveying comprehension of content while incorporating information into one’s own work and maintaining academic honesty. Paraphrasing is the process of re-stating in a unique way the information presented in a published work and giving direct credit for that information to the original author in the form of an in-text citation. A good strategy for paraphrasing it to read the article, jotting down an important or critical idea in less than 10 words, then re-writing the ideas in one’s own words without looking back at the text of the original article. It is important to recognize that plagiarism not only involves copying words verbatim, it also involves copying ideas.

Additional information about plagiarism and academic honesty at GCU can be found by viewing the Plagiarism Tutorial on Canyon Cruiser.