Departmental Policies

Academic Misconduct

In line with university regulations concerning allegations of academic misconduct, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has adopted the following policy to be applied to all courses offered through this department.

Following all procedures outlined in the academic calendar, if there is evidence of academic misconduct, and provided there is no prior record of academic misconduct, the minimum penalty shall be a letter grade reduction (e.g., A to A-). Depending on the type of academic misconduct, further penalties may be applied including the assignment of a failure in the course.  Additionally, future applications for employment (for example, as an IA/proctor/marker) in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department may not be receieved favourably.

If the student has a prior record, the case will be referred to the Dean of Science for further investigation.

The department uses many strategies to detect academic misconduct, such as Turnitin, a plagiarism-checking web-based service that reports the percentage similarity between an assignment and other sources including websites, journals, previous student work and current student work. 

Repeating a Course with a Laboratory Component

Students who have previously failed a course with a laboratory component, or who were granted a late withdrawal (WD) after completing all laboratory requirements, or who are repeating the course for upgrade may be considered upon request for exemption from the laboratory component of the course provided they previously achieved a grade of 65% or higher in the laboratory component.

The repeated course grade will be calculated by adding the previous laboratory grade to the grades achieved in all other components of the course during the current session. Students should consult with the Chemistry and Biochemistry undergraduate advisor before registering for the repeated course by submitting a Faculty of Science Registration Inquiry form.

If a student is found to have engaged in academic misconduct in the laboratory component of a course, and later repeats the course, the student will not be granted a lab exemption.

Residency Requirements

Consistent with university calendar Residence Requirements for all Designations, for an honours degree, all students, including those transferring from another university, must complete at this university a minimum of 10.0 credits (or equivalent) including at least 5.0 senior credits (or equivalent) in the honours discipline. In addition, for students completing honours degrees offered by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, of the 5.0 senior credits in the honours discipline at least 1.0 must be obtained from a senior laboratory course.