Academic Intergrity

In the MYP, the early and mid-adolescence years are crucial to self-development, especially in the information age. It is a time when many students experience increasing personal, family and peer pressure to achieve and perform. In this context, academic integrity must be seen as a larger set of values and skills that promote personal integrity and good practice in teaching and learning including assessments. Academic integrity is part of being “principled”, a learner profile attribute where learners strive to “act with integrity and honesty”.

Students of SMK Seri Tualang are expected to strive to develop the attributes of The IB Learner Profile that are embedded throughout the curriculum and in the school’s daily life. Therefore, the IB Learner Profile is the cornerstone to the school’s Academic Integrity Policy. In developing SMK Seri Tualang’s academic integrity policy we encourage our students to be:

• Inquirers – who acquire the skills necessary to conduct inquiry and research

• Knowledgeable – who are explore concepts, ideas and issues and also acknowledge the people and resources that add to our knowledge.

• Principled – who act with integrity and honesty, take responsibility for their own actions

• Open-minded – who are accustomed to seeking and evaluating a range of points of view.

• Risk takers – who are brave and articulate in defending their beliefs.

• Thinkers – who are able to apply critical and creative thinking skills to develop solution in order to make ethical decisions.

• Communicators – who are able to express ideas, as well as understand and interpret receive information, and communicate to others.

• Caring – who shows empathy and respect towards others by recognizing their hard work, achievement, research efforts and work produce.

• Balanced – who understand the importance of intellectual, physical and emotional balance to achieve personal well-being for ourselves and others by mention peers who helped us.

• Reflective – who are able to assess the strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.

These qualities, when applied to learning and student work, will establish skills and behavior which support good practices to be found in the classroom, used for homework and continued to examination level and to ensure that this values are long-lasting. The good practices are expected to be introduced, modeled and used throughout the school.

Academic integrity and academic Dishonesty

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 behavior in the production of legitimate, authentic and honest scholarly work.

Why do we need?:

• To maintain fairness

• To maintain trust and credibility

• To develop respect for others

Forms and Definitions of Academic Dishonesty

Cheating is defined as using unauthorized answers or sources to receive credit for schoolwork. Some examples are looking at someone else’s paper, copying from your notebook when you are supposed to use only your memory (e.g., on quizzes and tests), or copying someone else’s homework because you did not complete yours.

Plagiarism is defined as a form of cheating when you present another person’s words or ideas as your own without giving the originator credit for the information. Some common examples of plagiarism are copying information from a book without using quotation marks and without including a bibliography at the end of the assignment listing the sources used. All information in academic assignments that is not common knowledge must be cited and documented.

Collusion is defined as supporting malpractice by another candidate, as in allowing one’s work to be copied or submitted for assessment by another.

• Collusion is secret agreement to do dishonest or to trick another person, and it results giving student an unfair advantage over other students.

• Collusion can be distinguished from collaboration refers to a working practice where two or more person work together consensually towards a comman purpose and shared goal.

Paraphrasing is defined as using an author’s ideas by rewording or rearranging the author’s original words. Paraphrased materials still require the student to acknowledge the source.

General Guidelines

SMK Seri Tualang places a high value on honesty and this extends to work submitted for assessment. Teachers are expected to work with students from the beginning of their participation in the MYP, to develop shared understandings about cheating, plagiarism, and other instances of academic dishonesty. Our expectations are set out below. All members of the community need to be aware that the school treats academic dishonesty as a very serious matter.

Responsibilities to promote academic integrity

Teachers’ responsibilities

• Ensuring that students have a full understanding of the expectations and guidelines of all subject.

• Responding to student academic misconduct and supporting the school’s and IB’s policy

• Ensuring that students understand what constitutes academic misconduct and its possible cosequences

Librarians’ responsibilities

• School Librarians promoting academic honesty in the school and teaching research skills to the students.

• School Librarian should help students finding information about documentation/citation style and show the correct referring with integrity and respect others.

Counsellors’ responsibilities

• Guidance and advice students on implementing the academic integrity policy.

• Develop training session on citation to the students in learning skills.

Students’ responsibilities

• Adhere School and IB ethical guidelines and act with integrity.

• Adhere the rules and regulations of school examination regularly.

• Responsible to complete their own work or research by mention with proper citation of resource materials.

• Understand and take responsibility the consequences of academic dishonesty.

Parents’ responsibilities

• Parents required to read and understand the academic integrity policy.

• Ensure understanding the implication of breaching the policy.

• Remind children to do any assessment and must demonstrate the IB learner Profile attributes of being Principled, Inquirers, Thinkers, Reflectors, Communicators, and others.

• Must attend meeting if their children breach of the Academic Dishonesty Policy.

The academic integrity of students at SMK Seri Tualang :-

DO

• Produce their own work

• Acknowledge help from the teachers, parents and other students.

• Acknowledge the source of direct quotations

• Acknowledge information taken from the books, journal, CD-ROMs and internet

• Acknowledge reference materials in a bibliography

• Know what constitutes cheating and abides by the rules

• Follow all the exam rules.

DON’T

• Use notes during a test unless allowed by a teacher

• Copy the answer from another student during a test

• Copy the homework of another student

• Hand in the work that has been copied as their own

• Do homework for another student

• Allow another student to copy their work.

• Collusion with other student to imitate in completing their work or test

• Communicate with other student during test.

• Taking unauthorized material into an examination room

In a cohesive and comprehensive way, students will receive instruction in:

• The use of the Library and Internet

• The skill of taking basic notes

• A Simple paraphrasing and adaptation of source material in appropriate ways.

• The ways to acknowledge sources in writing and speech.