All educational institutions should
have a clearly stated policy on plagiarism,
as well as procedures to guide teachers who
suspect or find cases of plagiarism. The
University of Maryland
University College has a small collection
of web sites with policies. Some are as simple
as the one below, while others are part of
a larger judicial body or process, such as
the Georgetown University
Honor Council Web site. Many examples
are available to provide you with ideas, and
additional examples may appear on this site
at a later date. Lathrop and Foss provide
detailed guidance (p. 92+) as well as some
examples, with URLs, of grade and high school
codes. (When last viewed, most of the URLs
provided no longer work, but a Google advanced
search for the name of the school did work.)
Policies
and Procedures at Le Moyne College
The
Le Moyne College Student Handbook states:
Plagiarism is the attempt to fulfill an academic
requirement by using the ideas, words, or work of another person and
representing them as one's own. Academic conventions dictate
that students and scholars must acknowledge the source of phrases and
ideas that are not their own. Many ideas and phrases are so familiar
that they have become the common property of all; these obviously require
no documentation. However, the use of ideas or phrases
[or entire works] that are clearly original with another author requires
that the appropriate credit be given to the original author. Plagiarism
undermines that basic relationship of trust that must exist between
teacher and student, and among students, for the educational process
to work. For this reason, it cannot be tolerated and will be
penalized by failure in the course. A second instance of plagiarism
makes the student liable to dismissal from the College.
Le Moyne
College subscribes to Turnitin.com. All faculty have
access to this software, for assistance in registering
or using the program you will find instructions
on Echo (echo.lemoyne.edu) or you may contact
Gretchen Pearson, Turnitin.com Administrator.
For assistance in investigating suspected cases
of plagiarism, you may also want to work with
your Academic Dean. While you may wish to give
the student the benefit of the doubt, if suspected
plagiarism is not reported to the Dean, and it
happens a second time with the same student,
the second case is treated as if it were the
first. Remember that students talk to each
other about how they got away with cheating.