Instructors should familiarize themselves with the Academic Integrity Policy (AIP) and understand the proper steps to follow in cases of suspected violations, which are outlined below.
Academic Integrity Violations
Academic integrity is an essential element of a productive and successful career as a student. Instructors are encouraged to discuss the value and importance of academic integrity and good practice in their courses whenever they consider it appropriate. In addition to the suggested statement on plagiarism in the course outline (see course outline template), instructors are strongly encouraged to make clear their expectations with regard to academic integrity.
Note on Group Work
Group work is an important element of teaching and learning and is encouraged. If you do ask students to work together on laboratory reports, seminar presentations, research projects or other assignments, you should include in your course outline a clear and specific description of how and to what extent you consider group work to be acceptable or appropriate, especially in the completion of written assignments.
Submission of Work More Than Once for Academic Credit
In 2021, the AIP was revised and removed from the list of academic integrity violations “submission of substantially the same piece of work more than once for academic credit without permission.” If you wish to prohibit students from re-using their own work from a different course (or from the same course if they are repeating), or to require students to cite such work, or to seek your permission before doing so, this must be clearly stated in the course outline or assignment instructions. In addition, instructors wishing to prohibit multiple submissions of substantially the same work should be as clear as possible about what they consider to be “substantially the same.”
Generative Artificial Intelligence (e.g. ChatGPT)
Unless explicitly permitted by the instructor in a particular course either generally or for a specific assignment, any use of generative AI tools to produce assessed content is a violation of academic integrity standards.
Guidelines for Reporting an Academic Offence
Please deal with any suspected academic integrity violations as described below:
Consultation with Chair or Director
If you have evidence that an offence such as plagiarism, cheating, or unauthorized collaboration has occurred, immediately notify your chair/director.
- Alleged violations should be reported within five working days after the assignment has been graded.
- Please take the steps described below in preparing the evidence for submission to the appropriate Dean’s Office. Note that cases involving undergraduate courses should be sent to the Faculty Associate Dean (Students and Enrolment), as appropriate; those involving graduate courses should be sent to the Associate Dean (Students and Postdoctoral Affairs) in the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs.
Information and Documentation Concerning the Allegation
Note regarding use of AI Detector Programs
Instructors are discouraged from using AI detector programs because (at least at present), these detectors sometimes produce false negatives (i.e. AI generated text is determined to be human generated) and, more importantly, false positives (i.e. human generated work is determined to be AI generated). For this reason, output from detector programs is unreliable as the basis for an academic integrity allegation and therefore should not be submitted to the Associate Dean as evidence of an alleged offence.
If an instructor suspects that a student has used AI in writing an assignment, they should carefully document any problems with a student’s assignment that would violate the Academic Integrity Policy. Missing, inaccurate or fictitious references are often found in AI generated texts.
Contact with Student
When a student is alleged to have committed an academic integrity offence, we recommend faculty take the following steps:
- Let the student know there are concerns about their work, preferably via email to their Carleton email account, preferably before the course work is returned to other students.
- Suggested wording for the email is as follows:
“I am emailing you to let you know that your assignment has been submitted to the Dean’s Office for a possible violation of the Academic Integrity Policy. Carleton policy requires that no discussion of the case take place between us. You will be hearing soon from the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FASS)/Faculty of Public and Global Affairs (FPGA). In the meantime, you may wish to contact the University Ombudsperson at 613-520-2600 ext. 6617 or by email at ombuds@carleton.ca. You may also wish to review the Academic Integrity Policy and/or to contact the Office of Student Affairs in 430 Tory Building (telephone 613-520-2600 x3126) for clarification regarding procedures to be followed in addressing the allegation.”
- Avoid any discussion, and especially any public discussion, about the incident with the student. Getting involved in discussing details of the allegation with the student may result in your being drawn into an inappropriate debate or otherwise unintentionally compromising our attempt to treat these allegations both seriously and equitably.
- If you have approached the student, in your submission to the Associate Dean please indicate that you have done so and report what was said.
- The assignment in question should not be returned to the student.
Investigation and Decision
If the Dean’s office agrees that the matter should be pursued, the student will be invited to attend a meeting with an Associate Dean from FASS or FPGA as appropriate, as well as a representative of the Ombuds Office. The letter inviting the student to attend will be copied electronically to the instructor and to the relevant chair or director.
After meeting with the student, the Associate Dean will decide as to how to deal with the case. Please note that Carleton University’s Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of possible penalties and that the Associate Dean must be mindful of precedent and fairness when they assign penalties. The student is informed of the decision by letter sent via e-mail to his or her cmail account. The letter is copied to the instructor and the chair or director. Once notified of the decision, the instructor should amend the final grade as appropriate using the Submit Change of Final Grade function in the E-Grades system. Once you have received a copy of the decision, please destroy all correspondence associated with the case. A hard copy is retained by the FASS/FPGA Dean’s office until the student graduates.
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