The grades that students receive are intended to reflect their own academic achievement, effort, and creativity. UFA staff expects all students to achieve to the best of their ability while maintaining their personal integrity and the integrity of their school. Specific excerpts from PR.613 related to cheating and plagiarism (below) provide clear academic honesty expectations for students and teachers:
“Cheating is usually defined as the act of practicing deceit or breaking the rules. In the context of assessment and evaluation, cheating would be defined as the deviation from the behaviour expected in an evaluation situation. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Copying another student’s homework;
- Using another student’s work on a test or any other evaluation;
- Bringing unauthorized notes or notations into an evaluation;
- Asking for, or giving someone, an answer during an evaluation;
- Unauthorized use of electronic media to obtain answers during and evaluation; and
- Presenting assignments that have been completed by someone else as one’s own.”
TDSB PR.613
“Plagiarism is defined as the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another without attribution, in order to represent them as one’s own original work.
(Growing Success 2010 p. 151)
It can take many forms including the following:
- Submitting an essay/assignment written by someone else, e.g., buying an essay online, downloading an essay from a website, having someone else complete one’s assignment or copying or using work including homework done by another student;
- Piecing together material from one or several sources and adding only linking sentences;
- Quoting or paraphrasing material without citing the source of that material, including, but not limited to books, magazines, journals, websites, newspapers, television programs, radio programs, movies, videos, photographs, and drawings in print or electronic form;
- Copying and pasting from the internet or other electronic sites without citing the source; and omitting quotation marks for direct quotations, even if the sources have been cited.”
TDSB PR.613
In addition, UFA considers the following activities to also be cheating and/or plagiarism:
- Distributing or lending all or parts of assignments to others to hand in as their own;
- Exchanging information or material during an evaluation. This includes verbal, non-verbal, electronic, or a physical exchange of material;
- Asking for, enabling, providing, or receiving information from another student during an evaluation. This includes verbal, non-verbal, electronic or a physical exchange or material;
- Using, intending to use, or accessing unauthorized materials such as notes, texts, or programmable calculators during an evaluation;
- Handing in work that has already been submitted in any other course, unless otherwise approved;
- Completing classroom assignments at home, when intended to be completed in class, unless otherwise approved;
- Using, intending to use translation software (i.e. translations.com);
- Participating in the theft and/or use of stolen evaluation materials;
- Handing in marked material for remarking with material added which was not there originally.
Consequences:
Any student who is discovered to have participated in academic dishonesty will be subject to progressive consequences and/or discipline. This may include receiving a mark of “zero” on the assignment, having a copy of the assignment placed on file in the main office, and having teachers and parent/guardian notified. Depending on the nature of the offence, other disciplinary action, including suspension, may be necessitated. If there are any subsequent infractions, suspensions may occur, consistent with progressive discipline measures. As per PR.613: “All students who face the consequences of plagiarism or cheating have the right to appeal the teacher’s decision to the principal/vice principal.”
Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Service TDSB Procedure 590In order to ensure that the work students submit for evaluation is original, individuals may be required to submit selected assignments to the school’s service provider Turnitin through its website. Turnitin’s detection software will alert the classroom teacher of assignments which appear to contain other source material. Where appropriate, the teacher will follow up with the student to determine whether the information has been obtained from another source and whether the source material is appropriately recognized in the assignment. An academic penalty and/or additional school consequence may be applied if a teacher determines that plagiarism has taken place.
Turnitin’s website will require a student to submit their name, and an email address. This will allow the teacher to identify who has submitted an assignment for the purposes of evaluation, and will ensure the originality of the work assignment. This will also permit Turnitin to send the student a copy of the originality report for an assignment, or to send to the student the information about any changes to account information or password. The student name and email address are not maintained for any other reason. Assignments will be scanned as noted above. Both the student name and e-mail address will be deleted from Turnitin’s files after completion of the class. A copy of each student assignment will be kept on file for the purposes of comparing the assignment to future assignments submitted to schools in the Board should an instance of potential plagiarism be detected. Should such an event occur, you may be contacted by the teacher or main office as part of its investigation into an instance of potential plagiarism. This information is collected under s.264 of the Education Act and Regulation 298, s.20. Questions with respect to the collection of information for Turnitin may be referred to the Board’s Freedom of Information Coordinator as follows:
Senior Manager Board Services, Toronto District School Board, 5050 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario, M2N 5N8 (416) 397-3288.
Adapted from TDSB PR. 590
