Academic integrity is essential in a community of scholars. Anything less than total
commitment to integrity undermines the efforts of the entire academic community.
Both students and faculty are responsible for insuring the academic integrity of the University. Here’s what you can do to educate yourself and ensure an equitable learning community.
Familiarize yourself with Michigan Tech’s Academic Integrity Policy.
Read the Academic Integrity Policy, as well as the Possible Sanctions and Outcomes of policy violations.
Maintain personal academic integrity.
The Values Statement was designed to communicate how Student Affairs is aiming to inspire the student community in all aspects of a student’s life at Michigan Tech: community, scholarship, possibilities, accountability, and tenacity.
Treat all graded academic exercises as work to be conducted individually, unless otherwise instructed.
The Sauna Rule—If you are allowed to discuss assignments in a group, use the following rule. If you work out a problem with other students, do not copy the answer. Instead, go take a 30-minute sauna, and then write up the answer on your own without the aid of the group work. Copying work that is not yours is plagiarism, even if the work was done as part of a discussion of a problem.
Programming and Spreadsheet Assignments—Plagiarism includes submitting, as your own work, computer code or a spreadsheet written by someone else or directly derived from someone else’s work. Computer code or a spreadsheet is considered “directly derived” if it is created from or identical to someone else’s work except for minor changes, such as reformatting, change of variable names, and the like.
Ask faculty to clarify any aspects of permissible or expected collaboration on any assignment.
Group Work and Individual Assignments—In some courses, graded assignments will be explicitly designated as "team" or "individual."
- For team assignments, you will work on the assignment within your team but may not share information with any other team.
- For individual assignments, you must work privately without any discussion or use of outside resources (such as Internet resources).
Unauthorized Collaboration or Sharing—Sharing your work or ideas with another student on an individual assignment is a violation of the Academic Integrity Policy called "facilitating academic misconduct."
- This violation is as serious as any other violation of the Academic Integrity Policy.
- In general, even if you are permitted to discuss an assignment with other students, you should not share your work with any other student by electronic means—e.g., email or IM—since this encourages the copying or stealing of ideas, i.e., plagiarism.
Report any incidents of academic misconduct in a timely and specific fashion.
Students who witness academic misconduct can report it using one of the following methods:
- Academic Integrity Violation Form
- Tip Line
- Contact the professor.
- Contact the Office of Academic and Community Conduct. Note: If the Office of Academic and Community Conduct has any questions or needs additional information, you may be contacted. However, if you submit a concern anonymously through the Violation Form or Tip Line, you will not be contacted.