Academic integrity: The gold, the grey and the "stay away"

As a Laurier student and an active member of the university’s academic community, you share in the collective responsibility to uphold academic integrity in your course work and research. Familiarize yourself with ways to put academic integrity into practice during your time at Laurier, the behaviours which might lead to counter-productive habits, and the forms of academic misconduct.

The Gold: Golden Rules for Acting with Integrity

Here’s how you can continue to act with integrity in your academics:

1. Understand What is Expected: make sure you are aware of what’s expected of you as outlined in the Student Code of Conduct and Discipline.
2. (Re)Read Your Syllabus: revisit your syllabus throughout the term to get clarification on course requirements and assessment tools, and never hesitate to ask your instructors what their expectations are.
3. Cite Your Sources: always give credit where credit is due!
4. Be Prepared: Study and learning skills teams can help you review and plan out your schedule so that you have dedicated time to complete your assignments.
5. Be Organized: organized course and assignment notes will provide you with a record of where you found your information.
6. Don't Share Your Work: friends don’t ask friends to copy their assignment.
7. Ask for Help: Ask your professors, lab instructors, and TAs for help, get help from Writing Services, Mathematics and Statistic Learning Support and librarians.

The Grey: Getting in the Way of Your Success

In some cases, a failure to meet some of those golden rules won’t be considered academic misconduct but those choices can create roadblocks to your academic success.

For example: If you do not attend scheduled class meeting times or choose not to study before a test, your grades and your academic skills development can suffer.

Most often, things like time management and lack of awareness of expectations or where to get help are what lead to less than golden actions. Don’t get in the way of your own success!

Stay Away: Avoiding Acts of Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct, the term used for when individuals do not act with integrity in an academic setting, is something you want to actively stay away from.

Types of academic misconduct can include (but are not limited to):

• plagiarism
• impersonating another person in a test
• buying term papers or assignments
• cheating
• unauthorized collaboration on an individual assignment
• submitting the same piece of your own work from another course without permission
• falsifying, misrepresenting, or forging an academic record or supporting document

Not being prepared or not knowing the rules is not an excuse for academic misconduct, so you’ll need understand what’s expected before submitting an assignment or essay, or writing an exam. Visit students.wlu.ca/academic-integrity for links to resources and policies to help you stay golden and act with integrity!