Academic Integrity Policy

Purpose: Willamette University seeks to provide a consistent academic experience for students in each of its colleges. This policy is intended to provide common definitions and guidance for students around Academic Integrity, allowing for clear expectations across all courses and programs.

Definitions related to this Policy: Definitions related to the Academic Integrity policy are contained within the text of the policy.

Policy

Willamette University students should act with academic integrity in all matters associated with their learning and assessment. Academic integrity is a commitment by all members of the academic community to act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect, truthfulness, and responsibility, and requires instructors to fairly assess how successfully those receiving academic credit have achieved learning outcomes. Academic integrity is undermined when a student receives credit, assists another student(s) with receiving credit, or interferes with another student’s ability to receive credit for academic work in a manner that does not fairly represent the learning that the instructor expected the assessed student to demonstrate in order to receive credit for that work.

These standards comprise the University’s Academic Integrity policy for all students; individual colleges and programs may have specific policies around academic integrity for their student communities which are in addition to the University policy, which will be found in course syllabi and/or in college- or program-specific catalogs or handbooks. It is a student’s responsibility to confer with their faculty if they are unsure whether a particular college- or program-level policy applies to a given course or project.

2. Violations of the Academic Integrity Policy include, but are not limited to:

   1. Cheating: the use of unauthorized assistance, time, technologies, and/or other material or resources in the completion of work evaluated for credit, including:

      1. Work or collaboration with another student without instructor approval.

      2. Possessing, selling, purchasing, or sharing (without permission) any unauthorized notes, study sheets, or other information concerning the content of an examination or other graded course material.

      3. Submitting substantially similar work for two or more courses without explicit approval from each instructor.

      4. Consulting materials or information not authorized by the instructor to complete projects, exams, or other assessments.

      5. Violating time limits or any other time-related restrictions provided for an exam. This may include beginning before the stipulated time or by answering exam questions after the time set for completion.

   2. Misrepresentation, including plagiarism: the intentional or unintentional representation of someone else’s words, ideas, or work as one’s own, including:

      1. Copying the work of another student or permitting another student to copy one’s own work during an examination or other academic exercise.

      2. Using the published or unpublished ideas, words, or work of another person or AI bots in any form—either by reference, paraphrase, or direct inclusion or quotation—without full and clear acknowledgement or citation in a manner consistent with instructor expectations or professional standards (including the use of quotation marks, when appropriate).

      3. Using—without acknowledgement—materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.

      4. Fabricating or inventing sources of information.

      5. Falsifying information, records, or documents—including attendance rosters or other course-related materials.

      6. Falsely representing the completion of a course requirement.

   3. Interference: preventing an instructor from accurately assessing a student’s abilities in an academic setting, including:

      1. Taking an examination or completing an assignment for another student, or allowing another student to take an examination or complete an assignment on one’s behalf.

      2. Communicating to a grader the identity of a student who has taken an exam or other course-required project that is supposed to be anonymously graded before grading has been completed.

      3. Stealing, destroying, or altering another student’s academic work (such as an artwork, a computer program, a lab experiment/report, or a paper).

      4. Hiding, misshelving, mutilating, or otherwise abusing library materials to keep others from using them.

   4. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of classroom content: Sharing, copying, reproducing, uploading, sampling, or releasing any portion of classroom content for any purpose other than the student’s own academic work in that specific course. This includes recordings made by note-taking applications or services; informal classroom recordings made via personal device (cell phone, computer, recorder, etc.); as well as instructor- produced slide decks, study guides, assessments, and assignments. Specific considerations include:

      1. Making an audio or video recording of a classroom lecture, discussion, or presentation without explicit instructor permission.

      2. Distributing an audio or video recording of a classroom lecture, discussion, or presentation without the explicit permission of the instructor as well as any individuals (including students) in the recording.

      3. Using course materials in a manner that could inhibit or discourage classroom discussion, communication, or learning on topics relevant to the course. It is the responsibility of the student to confer with their instructor to determine the extent to which course materials may be shared or reproduced.

3. It is the responsibility of students to confer with their instructor to clarify a) any course-specific policies regarding proper source materials, b) the scope of proper collaboration or consultation with other students, c) the ability to use technological assistance in completing academic work, d) acceptable use of recorded course content in completing academic work, and e) how to best represent the work, assistance, or collaboration with others in each project, assignment, exam, or other course deliverable. Pleading ignorance about what constitutes improper collaboration, sampling, consultation, distribution, or representation shall not be considered a valid defense. A breach of academic integrity as outlined above may constitute the infringement of copyright, student privacy rights, and/or intellectual property in violation of applicable law and/or University policy. If students are uncertain as to what constitutes academic integrity for a particular assignment, they should assume the assignment or work product is to be completed through their own independent work or consult the instructor for clarification.
   
   In assessing potential violations of this policy, consideration will be given to the context of a particular student’s acts, including the culture of academic collaboration and consultation that exists for a particular course or the academic field in which the student is working.
   

Effective Date: August 15, 2022
Revision Date: November, 2022
Next Anticipated Review: August 01, 2024
Responsible Person/Primary Contact: Provost
Responsible University Office: Academic Affairs