Acknowledging Sources / Academic Integrity

The Diploma Programme prides itself on promoting high standards of academic honesty.

Academic honesty in the Diploma Programme is a set of values and behaviours informed by the attributes

of the learner profile. In teaching, learning and assessment, academic honesty serves to promote personal

integrity, engender respect for the integrity of others and their work, and ensure that all students have an

equal opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they acquire during their studies.

All coursework—including work submitted for assessment—must be authentic, based on the student’s

individual and original ideas with the ideas and work of others fully acknowledged. Assessment tasks that

require teachers to provide guidance to students or that require students to work collaboratively must be

completed in full compliance with the detailed guidelines provided by the IB for the relevant subjects.

Coordinators, teachers and supervisors are reminded that students must acknowledge all sources used in

work submitted for assessment. The following is intended as a clarification of this requirement.

Diploma Programme students submit work for assessment in a variety of media that may include audiovisual

material, text, graphs, images and/or data published in print or electronic sources. If students

use the work or ideas of another person, they must acknowledge the source using a standard style of

referencing in a consistent manner. A student’s failure to acknowledge a source will be investigated

by the IB as a potential breach of regulations that may result in a penalty imposed by the IB final award

committee.

The IB does not prescribe which style(s) of referencing or in-text citation should be used by students; this

is left to the discretion of appropriate faculty/staff in the student’s school. The wide range of subjects,

response languages and the diversity of referencing styles make it impractical and restrictive to insist on

particular styles. In practice, certain styles may prove most commonly used, but schools are free to choose

a style that is appropriate for the subject concerned and the language in which students’ work is written.

The following criteria must be applied:

• Students are expected to use a standard style and use it consistently so that credit is given to all sources

used, including sources that have been paraphrased or summarized.

• When writing, students must clearly distinguish (in the body of the text) between their words and those

of others by the use of quotation marks (or other method like indentation) followed by an appropriate

citation that denotes an entry in the bibliography.

• Students are not expected to show faultless expertise in referencing, but are expected to demonstrate

that all sources have been acknowledged.

• Students must be advised that any audio-visual material, text, graphs, images and/or data that is crucial

to their work and that is not their own must also attribute the source. Again, an appropriate style of

referencing/citation must be used.

• Regardless of the reference style adopted by the school for a given subject, it is expected that the

minimum information given includes:

• name of author

• date of publication

• title of source

• page numbers as applicable

• date of access (electronic sources)

• URL.

• For the bibliography, follow the minimum requirements as summarized on the last page of the Effective

citing and referencing document. 

Examiners are required to alert the IB when minimum requirements are not met by a student, and the

work is investigated accordingly.

All extended essays submitted to the IB for assessment must be authenticated by the student and

supervisor, and must not include any known instances of suspected or confirmed academic misconduct.

All students and supervisors must confirm the authenticity of the work submitted when uploading work

to the e-coursework system. Once a student has uploaded the final version of their extended essay to the

e-coursework system for assessment, and confirmed the authenticity of it, it is submitted via the system to

their supervisor. At this point the supervisor must not allow any retraction of the essay by the student for

modification purposes unless there has been an administrative oversight.

The Reflections on planning and progress form is given to the supervisor by the student, signed and dated,

and it is the responsibility of the supervisor to upload this to the e-coursework system, add their comment

and authenticate it before submitting it to the IB with the already uploaded essay as one portfolio. Further

guidance on this is given in the section “Protocols for completing and submitting the Reflections on

planning and progress form”.

It is extremely important that supervisors are able to confirm that they have followed the guidance for

monitoring the student’s work throughout the process and can, to the best of their knowledge, confirm

the authenticity of the work upon final submission (please refer to the Diploma Programme Assessment

procedures).

If the supervisor is unable to confirm the authenticity of the work this must be brought to the attention

of the Diploma Programme coordinator, who in turn should refer to the Diploma Programme Assessment

procedures for guidance. Work that is submitted but does not comply with the expectations and

requirements outlined in this publication will be treated as a case of academic misconduct.

When authenticity is in doubt, the supervisor should first discuss this with the student. In addition, one or

more of the following actions may be helpful:

• compare the style of writing with work known to be that of the student

• compare the final submission with the first draft of the written work

• check the references cited by the student and the original sources

• interview the student in the presence of a third party

• use one of the many websites set up to prevent plagiarism.

It is the responsibility of supervisors to ensure that all students understand the basic meaning and

significance of concepts relating to academic honesty, especially authenticity and intellectual property.

Supervisors must ensure that all student work to be assessed is prepared according to the stated

requirements and must explain clearly to students that the extended essay must be entirely their own

work.

The same piece of work cannot be submitted to meet the requirements of both the extended essay and a

subject-specific assessment component.