Academic Integrity

The International School of Ulaanbaatar (ISU), including all students, faculty and staff, is committed to academic integrity in all written, spoken, artistic, musical and digital work. In accordance with International Baccalaureate (IB) guidelines, and in adherence to the IB Learner Profile, academic integrity is an essential component of teaching, assessment and learning at ISU. IB teachers and learners must embody the values and skills that promote integrity in all of their academic work.

Philosophy

We believe that global citizens understand and respect the diversity of human thought and experience.

As such, academic Integrity lies at the heart of education at ISU. The values that encompass integrity permeate each aspect of learning. The value of gratitude drives our process forward. Each student is taught to be thankful to others who help them achieve their goals. As such, students learn to trust others and themselves. They learn to be responsible with their work. They learn to be honest in their relationships. They learn that fairness is important in their lives both as one who is fair and one who is part of a system of fairness. As such, our school community respects the development of academic integrity in each person. 

We are committed to cultivating the learner profile attributes and to enhancing the approaches to learning skills. We have intersected the values with the learner profiles and approaches to learning skills to illustrate how they work together. Here we connect the approaches to learning with the learner profile to begin to understand the mindsets and values of academic integrity. 

Definitions Related to Academic Integrity 

Academic integrity: Academic integrity is a guiding principle in education and a choice to act in a responsible way whereby others can have trust in us as individuals. It is the foundation for ethical decision-making and behaviour in the production of legitimate, authentic and honest academic work. 

Academic misconduct: A behaviour (whether deliberate or inadvertent) that results in, or may result in, a student gaining an unfair advantage in one or more components of assessment. Behaviour that may disadvantage another student is also regarded as academic misconduct (IBO Academic Integrity). 

School Maladministration: an action by an IB World School or an individual associated with an IB World School that infringes IB rules and regulations, and potentially threatens the integrity of IBDP examinations and assessments. It can happen before, during or after the completion of an assessment component or completion of an examination. 

Examination and Test Dishonesty: using cheat sheets, smartwatches or other prohibited items during a class test or examination; looking at another student’s paper during a class examination; providing another student, whether at ISU or elsewhere, with questions or answers from an examination or test which the ISU student has taken and the other student has not. 

Types of academic misconduct:

Every time you use someone else’s words or ideas, give them credit. You must mention the author or location where you found the information in the same sentence where you copied their ideas or words. Don’t worry － using outside sources makes a better argument and gives your work greater credibility. 

1. Cheating: using unauthorized material before or during an exam; using unauthorized sources or copying from someone else’s work to receive credit for schoolwork  

2. Collusion: knowingly assisting another student in the act of academic dishonesty; discussing exam or test questions with students who have not taken it yet

3. Duplication: submitting some portion or all of one assignment for a different assignment in the same or in another subject

4. Falsification: intentionally altering information or inventing information on assignments; uploading incomplete and/or inaccurate documents 

5. Plagiarism: deliberately or unintentionally violating the ethics of intellectual property rights in any of the following ways:

a) quoting or paraphrasing all or part of someone else’s work (text, audio, image, theory, formula, idea) without citing the source within the body of the work and in a bibliography of works cited

b) using information, including statistics, without citing the source

c) purchasing or obtaining someone else’s work to submit as one’s own

d) committing unintended plagiarism through imprecise documentation or inattention to detail in formatting

e) including citations in a works cited list that are not used in creating and completing an assignment

f) leaving out quotes in copied material, even if properly documented

g) infringing on copyright law by not adhering to ISU’s fair use agreement

h) obtaining an inappropriate level of support from a parent, tutor or other source.

6. Unauthorized Disclosure: Disclosure of information about the content of an examination paper or other assessment within 24 hours after an examination or other assessment has been administered.

Expectations:

It is the responsibility of all students to produce authentic work and to accurately and honestly cite all sources used in the production of that work following the school-mandated MLA format.

It is the responsibility of the students, teaching staff and parents to become familiar with, to support, and to adhere to the regulations for academic honesty as they are referenced in the ISU Acceptable Use Agreement, the ISU statement on copyright and fair use, and the School Operating Regulations (SOR).

It is the responsibility of all teachers to teach, and to provide grade-level appropriate opportunities for students to learn and practice how to authentically and honestly use other people’s work in the production of their own academic assignments and projects.

Student Rights and Responsibilities

ISU students are expected to understand and accept the principle of academic integrity and face the challenges associated with it. This is not a task that students will face in isolation, as they have the support of their teachers and the school (Academic Integrity 15).

Students at ISU have the right to:

• Be treated fairly and with respect

• Request clarification and/or additional instruction in support of academic integrity

• Seek out supplementary resources in their best language, as appropriate and available

• Be made aware of academic integrity incidents in question

• Appeal academic integrity incidents in writing

Students at ISU have the responsibility to:

• Produce authentic and genuine individual and group work

• Know how to correctly attribute sources, acknowledging the work and ideas of others, and/or ask teachers, the librarian, or programme coordinators when unsure how to cite a source according to MLA formatting

• Demonstrate responsible use of information technology and media

• Observe and adhere to ethical and honest practice during examinations

• Organize time to avoid last minute work, which can lead to the temptation to take short cuts with academic integrity

• Ensure familiarity with the ISU academic integrity policy, and understand what constitutes academic misconduct and its possible consequences

• Abstain from receiving non-permitted assistance in the completion or editing of work, such as from friends, relatives, other students, private tutors, translation sites, essay writing or copy-editing services, pre-written essay banks or file sharing websites

• Only upload complete or accurate versions of their work

• Continually develop all attributes of the Learner Profile, especially as they relate to academic integrity

Educator Rights and Responsibilities

Educators supporting ISU students in their learning should understand their own central role in developing the approaches to learning and reinforce the principle of academic integrity through all teaching, learning, and assessment practices (Academic Integrity 3). 

Educators at ISU have the right to:

• Be treated fairly and with respect

• Be trusted in knowing academic integrity expectations and their students’ work products

• Request clarification and/or additional training in support of academic integrity

Educators at ISU have the responsibility to:

• Implement ISUs definition of high quality learning, the Reflections on Learning and Teaching 

• Support students in developing age-appropriate research skills and knowledge of diverse citation methods within MLA to be used in ethical academic writing

• Set clear expectations for assignments, and where possible, design assignments that do not lend themselves to academic misconduct

• Discuss the benefits of submitting assignments that are correctly referenced, with a focus on gratitude, honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility

• Ensure that students understand what constitutes academic misconduct, how to avoid it, and its possible consequences

• Model all of the IB Learner Profile attributes to make visible to all students how these attributes are key factors in expressing what we value as a community, including modeling academic integrity

• Maintain the integrity of examination paper questions and answers

• Give appropriate feedback and ensure DP students are not provided with multiple rounds of editing, which would be contrary to instructions described in relevant subject guides and the Academic Integrity for Internal Assessments publication

• Submit student work for final assessment to the IBO only after the work has been authenticated by the teacher with the support of tools such as Turnitin

• Ensure that external reporting and/or predictions are based on educational evidence and are as accurate as possible 

• Respond to student academic misconduct promptly by communicating with the coordinator and supporting subsequent investigations

School Rights and Responsibilities

As noted in our philosophy above, ISU approaches academic integrity as a holistic, school-wide endeavour.

ISU has the right to:

• Expect fairness for and honesty from all stakeholders with regard to academic integrity

ISU has the responsibility to:

• Provide teachers with training opportunities for research and citation skills per MLA format, such as direct instruction in Primary, and how to utilize Turnitin as a teaching tool in Secondary

• Maintain and promotes an up-to-date Academic Integrity policy

• Apply this policy fairly and consistently

• Ensure teachers and students understand and adhere to the policy

• Share the aims of the policy with parents and guardians

• Evaluate the impact of the Academic Integrity policy to insure it informs teaching and learning

• Demonstrate commitment to effective, culturally-diverse and age-appropriate sourcing and use of electronic and hard copy resources in support of students’ academic products

• Maintain open and honest channels of communication with stakeholders

Parent Rights and Responsibilities

ISU recognizes that parents and legal guardians play a crucial role in the education process which includes reinforcing the values and importance of academic integrity (Academic Integrity 17).

Parents and legal guardians of ISU students have the right to:

• Expect respect and honesty from all stakeholders with regard to academic integrity

• Be informed when their student has been involved in an academic integrity incident

• Request clarification pertaining to the academic integrity policy and its implementation

Parents and legal guardians of ISU students have the responsibility to:

• Ensure they read and understand the Academic Integrity policy in terms of the expectations of their children

• Contact teachers, the librarian, and/or programme coordinators for clarification regarding academic integrity

• Support their children to plan and schedule their workload so that students have ample time to plan and ask for clarification from their teachers

• Acknowledge that disproportionate external support from outside the school, whether paid or unpaid, may constitute a form of academic malpractice

• Encourage their child to work independently and seek assistance from their teachers when needed

• Submit only genuine and/or authentic evidence to support a request for inclusive access arrangements or adverse circumstances considerations for their children

• Maintain open and honest channels of communication with the school

Specific Procedures Followed at ISU - Secondary School

Student Support and Guidance

All students and parents are informed of ISU’s views on the importance of academic integrity and honesty, and therefore recognize that dishonesty runs counter to ISUs values and ethos.

Each year in the first weeks of school, the academic integrity policy will be explained to all students. (In addition, sessions are scheduled twice throughout the year to inform students who arrive after the start of the year.) Care is taken to inform students at the beginning of each academic year of the expectations that MLA format is used consistently and of the different ways misconduct can occur. Individual teachers reiterate this message throughout the year. The importance of academic integrity is specifically taught and reiterated throughout the year across subjects.

Secondary students are explicitly taught age-appropriate skills, including but not limited to:

• Paraphrasing and the adapting of source material;

• Research-writing techniques;

• Data gathering techniques;

• The planning, preparation, and execution of writing assignments;

• Varied ways to acknowledge sources in writing and speech using MLA;

• Ways to acknowledge information derived from diverse electronic sources;

• Understanding circumstances when the use of translation sites are/are not appropriate;

• What constitutes academic misconduct;

• Techniques for using translated material;

• Use of tools to acknowledge sources appropriately using MLA.

Students are progressively given research opportunities across the curriculum, preparing them for the high level of research and skills required in the IB Diploma Programme.

All secondary students are taught how to reference correctly (at an age-appropriate level), using the MLA system for formatting and referencing. 

Procedures and Consequences - MYP 1-3 (grades 6-8)

​​Students will be asked by the subject teacher if they have infringed on academic integrity.

• If the answer is yes, they are asked about the nature of the source.

• If the student denies that they received external help, the evidence is presented to them.

The first offense is a teachable moment. These steps will be taken:

• Students are reminded of the definition of misconduct

• They are asked to repeat the assignment

• The Middle Years Programme Coordinator is informed 

• A behavior note is documented in Managebac by the teacher

• Parents are informed by the teacher

In the case of students who repeat these offenses, these additional steps will be taken:

• The student will be seen by the Head of Secondary for further disciplinary actions

• The parent and advisory teacher will be informed

Procedures and Consequences - MYP 4 & 5 and DP (grades 9-12)

Violations of academic integrity are “counted” cumulatively throughout a student’s high school career at ISU.

Level One: Level One defines what happens when a student is first discovered to have violated academic integrity. 

• The teacher suspecting misconduct in a piece of work will speak to the student at an opportune and private moment to ascertain if misconduct/plagiarism has taken place.

• The teacher will clarify with the student how to source correctly, and the student will be allowed by the teacher to rewrite the work or be given an alternative assignment to be assessed as normal.

• The teacher will inform the Programme Coordinator, record the incident in a behavior note in Managebac (and check for previous violations, if present, go to Level Two below), and inform the parents/guardians of the incident and the consequences.

• ISU keeps a record of all academic integrity violations as ManageBac behavior notes to cross-reference with reports submitted. 

Level Two: Level Two is for a repeated violation of academic integrity. The occurrence of a second or further reported incident of academic integrity violation (not necessarily from the same teacher) results in more serious consequences.

• The teacher will provide a report (verbal or written) and evidence of the misconduct to the Programme Coordinator.

• The Programme Coordinator will investigate the concern and interview the student. 

• Should misconduct be confirmed, the student will be referred to the Head of Secondary for follow-up per the ISU Behavior Management Guidelines.

• Parents will be informed.

• Repeated incidents of academic integrity may suggest a student needs to be removed from a course of study, up to and including the IB Diploma. Very serious infractions may also result in suspension per the ISU Behavior Management Guidelines.