2025-2026 Adrian College Academic Catalog

Academic Integrity Policy

 

Consistent with Adrian College’s mission statement and based on principles of integrity and honesty, Adrian College seeks to develop students who are scholars capable of working independently. This includes the ability to analyze, organize, express, and synthesize information in an original fashion. Any student who engages in behaviors that violate academic integrity and honesty can face disciplinary proceedings that may involve dismissal from Adrian College.

Students suspected of academic dishonesty may be subject to academic and/or administrative disciplinary procedures. In the first disciplinary procedure level, faculty members notify students of suspected dishonesty, meet with the students to discuss the infraction, and impose appropriate academic penalties if an academic integrity violation is determined (e.g., reduced or failing grade for project and/or class). The faculty member also has the authority to report the incident to the Office of Student Life for inclusion in the student’s file. In the second procedural level, the Office of Student Life may apply administrative action in addition to or in the absence of academic disciplinary procedures. Contact the Dean of Students at x 3142 for more information.

 

Expectations For Academic Honesty

  • No student shall intentionally or inadvertently present others’ ideas as his/her own

  • No student shall give or receive assistance on course assignments beyond the guidelines established by the professor.

  • No student shall violate the academic and intellectual standards as established by the professor, professional association of the discipline, or other sanctioning bodies such as the state or federal government. It is a joint responsibility of faculty and students to create awareness and understanding of professional standards. Faculty have the duty to inform students of relevant professional standards, and students have the superseding duty to learn professional standards even in the absence of explicit instruction from the faculty.

  • No student shall falsify or fabricate data, distort data through omission, or in any other way misrepresent data.

  • No student shall engage in obstruction, defined as conduct that damages or destroys another person’s work or hinders another in her/his academic endeavors.

  • No student shall forge any person’s signature.

  • No student shall misrepresent his/her personal accomplishments nor misrepresent information about her/his Adrian College career.

General Definition Of Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty includes attempts to present as one’s own work, that which is not; help others in efforts to present as their own work, that which is not; or prevent others from receiving appropriate academic credit.

Types Of Academic Dishonesty

     This list is not exhaustive and may be modified to reflect specific course requirements by a professor. Note: Seeking assistance from appropriate sources such as professors, a tutor, or an assistant in the College Writing Center or Math Department is NOT academically dishonest. Academic dishonesty includes:

 

   Obstruction: Any behaviors that would affect another’s work or materials necessary to complete such work. For example, withholding reference materials; destroying or tampering with computer files, laboratory or studio work, library resources, or research projects. Obstruction also includes any action that interferes with the teaching efforts of faculty members by disrupting the classroom, interfering with their interactions with other students, or in any way impeding or disrupting faculty member’s research projects.

Misconduct in Research and Creative Efforts: Submission of work that the student knows to be inaccurate, including the fabrication, falsification, improper revision, selective reporting, or inappropriate concealing of data. Misconduct also includes a violation of human subjects standards including the failure to obtain IRB or equivalent approval before conducting research with human subjects; and/or the release of information or data given in the expectation of confidentiality to the researcher, creative artists, etc.; and/or failure to adhere to any applicable federal, state, municipal, disciplinary or collegiate regulations, standards or rules for the protection of human or animal subjects, or the protocols of the study population.

Fabrication also includes using technology (such as language based-Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to generate and evaluate research data. Adrian College believes the research and creative process are primarily a human social pursuit. Students should submit assignments that illustrate their own cognitive, creative, interpretive, and decision-making processes per syllabus policy and instructor guidelines.

For the purpose of this policy, the Oxford English Dictionary (2023) definition of artificial intelligence (AI) will serve as the standard definition. Artificial intelligence refers to any “computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.”

 

Cheating on Quizzes, Tests, or Examinations:

Using or attempting to use any materials, including but not limited to notes, study aids, books or electronic devices not authorized by the instructor; copying off another student’s work; allowing another student to copy off your own work; taking an exam (which includes tests and quizzes) for another student or allowing another person to take an exam in your place; providing or receiving any kind of unauthorized assistance in an examination, such as providing or receiving substantive information about test questions or materials, topics, or subjects covered by the test. 

 

Use of Prohibited Materials: Using prohibited materials or equipment for performances, rehearsals, or classics assignments. For example, using a hidden “cheat sheet” with text for a vocal repertoire, vocal jury, or junior/senior recital or using AI tools when it is against course policy. 

 

False Submission: Submission as one’s own, work that has been produced by another. For example, using another person’s speech or presentation materials (e.g., a PowerPoint presentation created by another student or obtained from the Internet) or submission of work written or produced by another entity or person (e.g., a paper acquired online, from other published sources, student organization files, or unattributed results generated by AI programs). 

 

Aiding and Abetting False Submissions: Providing papers or other academic work to fellow students. For example, providing a paper from student organization files, writing or researching a paper for another student, or completing an assignment for another student. In general, unauthorized collaboration on the production of any academic work without prior approval of the instructor is prohibited. When in doubt, students should consult with the course instructor.

 

Multiple Submissions: Submission of the same work, in whole or substantial part, to more than one course without the explicit prior approval of all instructors currently involved. If work has been submitted in a prior course, either at Adrian or another institution, the student(s) must receive approval from the instructor(s) of the current course. If work is to be submitted to multiple courses in the same term, the student(s) must receive approval from the instructor of each course.

  • The policy applies to resubmission of assignments for a course that is retaken for any reason. 

  • The multiple submissions rule is not intended to prevent students from building on or further developing work begun in prior courses. Examples include the further development of an art object begun in a course such as Two-Dimensional Design in a later studio art class, the expansion of a project begun in a research methods course for a capstone project, the ongoing development of a laboratory experiment, etc. In each of these cases, however, the instructor of the later course has the authority to determine to what degree the original work may be incorporated into the later work. 

Corrupted Files: Submitting an unreadable file known to be corrupted or intentionally corrupted. Claiming false grounds for requesting an extended deadline. For example, using an online site or application to corrupt the file in order to create delay and avoid deadlines (note that intentional data corruption is typically detectable). 

Fabrication: The use of invented, counterfeited or forged information, sources, or data in any assignment, test, paper, project, lab report, etc. Includes information generated by a computer algorithm such as a language-based AI model, alteration or misleading omission of relevant data and dishonest reporting of research results, but does not apply to legitimate disagreement over the interpretation of findings, data, concepts, theories, etc. 

 

Plagiarism: 

Plagiarize – Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines plagiarism as: “to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own; to use a creative production without crediting the source; to commit literary theft; to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.” 

The act of submitting a paper, project, test, or other assignment signifies that the student affirms that the work is his/her own. The absence of any discernible attempt to give credit to your source will be taken as prima facie evidence of intent to plagiarize. In other words, if you have made no attempt to give credit to someone else, you have created a presumption of intentional plagiarism. Inadvertent plagiarism is sloppy scholarship and unacceptable, even if committed out of ignorance.

Types of Plagiarism:

  • Direct plagiarism is taking the exact words of an author without giving due credit. There should be a visual indication of using an author’s exact words, such as quotation marks or block indentation, and there should be a proper citation of the author’s work. 

Original Source: “To the extent that behavior problems occur in the classroom, teachers should question the students and conduct systematic observations of them” (Good & Brophy, 1991, p. 257).

  • Acceptable Use: Population cannot grow forever because the world is finite and cannot support an infinite number of people (Hardin 1968). [Note that although the student has paraphrased – put the idea into her/his own words, she/he has still properly cited the original author, giving him/her credit for the idea.].

  • Unacceptable Use: To the extent that behavior problems occur in the classroom, teachers should question the students and conduct systematic observations of them. [Note that the student is using your/the original author’s idea, but is failing to give him/her credit for it.].

  • Indirect plagiarism occurs “when paraphrasing someone’s words or ideas without changing the sentence structure or only occasionally changing a word or phrase” (Storey, 1999). Plagiarism does not only include the verbatim replication of text or speech. It also includes the plagiarism of ideas; such as can occur with unattributed paraphrasing.

  • Reproduced images and sounds, including photographs, drawings, charts, tables, graphs, or any other graphical items or audio segments must be identified by proper citation of the source.

  • Use of AI programs created by others, such as language translation services, evolutionary algorithms, etc., must follow policies laid out by the instructor in the syllabus.

  • When allowed by the instructor, use of AI tools must be included in academic citations appropriate to the project.

  • Any text or item copied and pasted from the Internet must include proper citation.