Integrity and honesty are values that our school stands for. What does academic integrity mean?
One student described integrity as "doing the right thing, also if nobody watches". This quote seems to float around all over the internet, so it is hard to give credit to the person who came up with it - something that we would have liked to do.
In academic settings (school, university) people trust you to be honest about your sources and proud to give credit where credit is due. It is more than trust, it is a hard expectation. Failing to be academically honest can even mean you fail to get your diploma. So we better make sure you know how to do the right thing.
When you are doing research it is hard to keep track of all your sources. In our school we have a tool that will help you from the start: NoodleTools. Here you can create a project file for each project, where you can save all your sources, take notes, collaborate with team mates, start a paper, and automatically create works cited lists in the right format.
Lots of practice makes the master. We recommend start using NoodleTools early on so you will be a master when you enter the Diploma Programme with all its essays and reports. It will also help you when you go to university, it's a skill for life!
There are many ways to be dishonest: cheating on tests, re-using other people's papers, let somebody else make your assignments, or other creative ways where you don't hand in work that is really yours.
One thing that we focus on is how to show where you found the information that you used to create your own work: citing and referencing. Using other people's work is very good practice, you build on previous knowledge to shape your own thinking, making, creating. Be proud of that.
And make sure that you show what you used where from whom: cite your sources! A good tool to help you is NoodleTools.
If you want to find out more about what to do, what not to do, examples and consequences for student academic misconduct, but also some tips on how to avoid plagiarism, you can browse the IBO Academic Integrity policy document.