Maintaining Academic Integrity

ACS Athens Middle School and Academy Academic Integrity Policy

The ACS Mission Statement obliges us to provide opportunities for all students to “develop a deep sense of integrity and self-esteem.” Few qualities are as important to living a good life as these are. In support of this goal, we are committed to helping students understand and demonstrate the principles of academic integrity on a daily basis.

Simply put, academic integrity means always being honest about your work by avoiding cheating and plagiarism. At ACS, we will consider that academic integrity has been violated and cheating has occurred when you use someone else’s words, work, test or quiz answers, and/or ideas and claim them as your own.

Why is it important to maintain academic integrity?

• We want you to take pride in your honest achievement.

• You will feel good about yourself when you meet the challenges of your academic work. It is hard to feel good about yourself when you take credit for someone else’s work.

• You will develop and maintain a reputation as an honest person.

• People’s words, work and/or ideas are considered “intellectual property” – meaning, that their creator owns them. Some types of plagiarism violate not only school rules, but US and European law. Plagiarism is a form of theft. So are other forms of cheating, like copying another’s work on a test.

• Cheating gets in the way of learning. When you pass someone else’s work or ideas off as your own, you are not learning, nor are you practicing the skills that you need to succeed in the university and in the workplace: how to write, analyze, form conclusions, and generate new ideas.

• You will learn what you are honestly capable of achieving.

What does cheating look like? (Examples of violations of academic integrity.)

• Copying someone’s homework;

• Looking at another’s test, getting unauthorized assistance during a test, sharing answers with others during a test, letting someone copy your assignment;

• Having a parent or a tutor do your homework;

• Paying a tutor to write your paper (or complete your college applications) for you;

• Letting your parents build your project;

• Letting your partner do all the work on a project and just putting your name on the final product;

• Turning in an old project or paper completed by a former student (an older brother or sister, for example);

• Taking a paper directly from the Internet and passing it off as your own;

• Copying directly from published works or Internet sites, and/or using someone else’s words without quoting them and citing the sources of information;

• Paraphrasing (rewording) someone’s words and not giving him/her credit for the ideas or concepts; passing someone’s ideas off as your own;

• Using images, charts, graphs, maps, tables, and other graphics from published or Internet sources in your work without citing where you found them.

• The use of a chatbot or any other AI tool to create and /or complete an assignment or assessment in any class without your own authentic contributions and/ or citing its use.

How is cheating discovered?

• New technology.  Teachers can simply plug a word or phrase from your work into a search engine (such as turnitin.com) and find from where on the Internet an idea or paper has come.

• Teachers love to talk about their students’ accomplishments.  As they talk about their students’ achievements, they learn about work that students have completed for other classes. Thus, they also learn of instances when friends have submitted another student’s work in another class. You should always check with your teacher to see if original work you have done for one class can also be used in other classes. Teachers also have a good memory for work that has been previously submitted to them.

• Teachers know your writing.  Teachers know how students write. It doesn’t take much to recognize what was written by a particular student and what was written by someone else.

What are the consequences of violating the Academic Integrity policy?

Violating the Academic Integrity policy is a level 3 misconduct.  The consequences for violations of academic integrity (cheating and plagiarism) are as follows:

First violation:

1. 1. Grade of zero on relevant assignment or assessment and notification of parent; 

   2. Letter on file with the Vice Principal.  This will become part of the child’s permanent record and may be accessed if additional incidents of Academic Integrity occur;

   3. In IB classes, students will be subject to IB malpractice guidelines for work on mock exams, official IB exams and officially assessed/moderated assignments;

   4. Referral of NHS members to NHS Committee for appropriate disciplinary action.  They will also be shared with members of NHS Committee during selection process. 

Second violation:

1. Grade of zero on relevant assignment or project and notification of parent;

2. Record of plagiarism will be placed in student’s file*. 

How can you avoid cheating**?

• The best way to avoid cheating and plagiarism is to find ways to personalize your assignments. React in writing about how your topic might personally affect you, your family, or your community. Let your reader know what you think about your topic and about why it matters to you. An original conclusion, which is supported by facts from other works properly cited is never cheating. Write in your own voice, not just in your own words.

• Organize your work so that you do not run into a last-minute time crunch that keeps you from studying, writing, creating, revising, reflecting and making your work your own.

• Record where you found your supporting ideas while you do your research – once for finding the information, and again for writing your footnotes and doing the bibliography.

• ALWAYS include a bibliography, list of resources or acknowledgement whenever you use the work or ideas of others. If you cannot provide a citation, do not use the source.

• Understand that using other’s work is permissible and, usually, necessary to create well-supported arguments, conclusions, and answers to questions. Giving credit to the source of this work keeps it from being plagiarism.

• Make as large a percentage of your work as original as possible. Use direct quotations and paraphrasing only when what you find is written in such a way that it clarifies or makes memorable the idea expressed.

* Students should be aware that some colleges and universities require high schools to report incidents of academic malpractice to admissions officers.

**Additional consequences for cheating/plagiarism can be found in the Code of Conduct Violation Group III Details section.