Student Professional Conduct and Academic Integrity

Identifying issues of academic integrity

Addressing violations of academic integrity

Step 1: Review the definition of plagiarism at ASU and identify the MLFTC Academic Integrity Officer.

Step 2. Document the concern and communicate the issue with the lead instructor.

Step 3: Email the student to notify them of the alleged academic integrity violation.

Step 4. The instructor must report the alleged violation through the Advocate system.

Step 5. The Advocate system generates an automatic incident report and the college's AIO will follow up with the student and notify instructor. The MLFTC Academic Integrity Officer makes the sanction decision (the instructor has NO input on this decision).

Professional conduct

It is expected that students exhibit professional behavior in all settings, including clinical placements and working with other students in the online classroom. If at any time a student's behavior does not meet the standards delineated in the class syllabus, Mary Lou Fulton Satisfactory Academic Progress and Professional Conduct Policy, or university policies, the instructor may refer the student for academic probation or to the ASU Dean of Students.

Academic integrity

Students are expected to act with honesty and adhere to the university’s Student Academic Integrity Policy. Failure to do so may result in sanctions, such as grade penalties, suspension, or expulsion from the university. Violations of academic integrity include, but are not limited to, such actions as cheating; plagiarizing; fabricating or falsifying information; or assisting with such activities.

Identifying issues of academic integrity

In online programs in Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, violations of academic integrity, such as plagiarism, may be brought to the attention of the lead instructor or co-instructor through a variety of means. The course management system includes a web-based plagiarism detection service for use by the instructional team to assist in uncovering possible instances of plagiarism. When enabled for a particular assignment, the plagiarism detection service generates a similarity report that identifies all material in the student’s submission that appears to be derived from other sources, including both sources that are properly acknowledged and cited and any that are not.

Because the similarity report cannot distinguish properly and improperly cited sources, it is important that the instructional team use careful judgment when making determinations concerning plagiarism. When interpreting the similarity report associated with a student’s assignment submission, it is necessary to identify if the student is using work from:

1. a properly cited source,
2. an uncited source (e.g., website, another student’s paper, or another source),
3. work the student submitted for another class (which can be considered self-plagiarism, although the course syllabus or assignments should indicate that is not allowed to pursue this further), or
4. work the student previously submitted for the course that is getting flagged by the plagiarism detection service (e.g., an earlier draft of the work).

The plagiarism detection service provides a way for the instructional team to dive into the similarity report to see what the source is, although it can be more challenging if the report says “another student paper.”

It is also possible that all the citations in the student’s submission are legitimate, but when all the sections that the student quoted from other sources (even properly) are removed, there is not enough individually-authored material for the student to meet all the assignment requirements. In this scenario, the work should be graded using the established rubric and if the student has not fulfilled all the assignment requirements, the assignment grade should be issued accordingly.

If the work contains questionable material, as supported by a careful review of the similarity report or through other means, it will be necessary to address any potential violations of academic integrity as outlined below. Note that any course deliverable, such as blog posts, discussion forums, etc., should be reviewed for plagiarism.