Academic Integrity: Resources for Students & Faculty

Piedmont University's Academic Integrity Policy

In accordance with the Mission and Core Values of Piedmont University, it is the responsibility of each member of the Piedmont community to promote an atmosphere of academic integrity and an understanding of intellectual honesty that adheres to the highest standards of professional and personal conduct.

To protect intellectual and scholarly integrity, the University imposes strict penalties for academic dishonesty, which is defined as follows.

• Cheating — using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise. Examples
  You cheat when you ...

  • copy answers from or look at another student’s exam;
  • access or possess any material not expressly permitted during an exam, such as crib sheets, notes, books;
  • use electronic devices such as cell phones, digital cameras, PDA’s, data storage devices, computers, internet websites, or other electronic devices during an exam unless expressly permitted by the instructor;
  • continue to write after a timed exam has ended;
  • fraudulently possess a test prior to exam date;
  • submit the same term paper or other work to more than one instructor, where no prior approval has been given;
  • submit purchased term papers or projects done by others.
• Deception — providing false information to an instructor or other academic administrator about an academic matter in order to achieve an unmerited advantage. Examples
  You engage in deception when you ...

  • give a false excuse for missing a project deadline;
  • claim to have submitted coursework that one did not actually submit;
  • take an exam or submit coursework on behalf of someone else, especially when using their personally identifying credentials to do so;
  • forge an advisor's or instructor's signature on an academic form.
  • reuse your own academic work for one class in another class, without citation or without the instructor's permission (also known as self-plagiarism).
• Facilitating academic dishonesty — helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty. Examples
  You facilitate academic dishonesly when you ...

  • allow another student to copy your work or the work of another person;
  • have another person take an exam or complete an assignment for oneself;
  • take an exam or complete an assignment for another student, especially when using their personal credentials to do so;
  • share the content or answers of an exam or test with students in another section who have yet to take it.
• Plagiarism — representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise. Examples
• Fabrication — unauthorized invention or falsification of any information or citation in an academic exercise or altering official university records or documents. Examples
• Collusion — working in collaboration with others on an assignment intended to represent a single student’s work; or, improving or editing another’s completed work to the extent that the nature and quality of the original work is significantly altered. Examples

This additional statement appears on the syllabus for every course at the University in the section Directives on Completion of Student Work.

Course activities designated as quizzes, tests and exams are always to be completed by a student individually and without assistance from other people or resources UNLESS permission for collaboration or the use of external resources is explicitly permitted by the course professor(s).

Hence all quizzes, tests and exams are to be considered closed-book/closed-notes and closed-internet (e.g., Google searches). Artificial intelligence apps are also banned on quizzes, tests and exams unless explicitly permitted by the course professor(s).

The current version of the Academic Integrity Policy is available in the 2022-2023 edition of the University's Undergraduate Catalog. This policy is also applicable to graduate students.

Piedmont University's Academic Integrity – Student Violations Policy

All faculty must consistently follow the correct procedures in dealing with cases of academic integrity. Individual decisions or exceptions cannot be made.

1. The faculty member making the complaint will provide to the Dean of the College where the course resides a signed statement fully describing the act of dishonesty, naming persons involved and witnesses, and listing all physical evidence. All physical evidence is to be secured, if possible, by the Dean.

2. The Dean will provide the student involved with written notification of the accusation of academic dishonesty, the identity of the faculty member making the complaint, and the procedures for resolving the case.

3. The Dean will review the case based on the evidence presented, taking into consideration any recommendations of the instructor responsible for the academic exercise in which the act of academic dishonesty is alleged to have occurred. The Dean will make the final judgment and will provide the student written notification of the disposition.

4. A student may ask for a reconsideration by the Dean if there are new facts or extenuating circumstances that were not brought to light in the initial review.

5. A student may appeal the decision of the Dean to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Such an appeal would focus only on procedural due process issues.

All course grades would count in computing the cumulative GPA.

The current version of the policy document Academic Integrity-Student Violations is available in the 2022-2023 version of the University's Undergraduate Catalog. This policy is also applicable to graduate students.