ARMS Academic Honesty Policy
In the IB programs we strive to instill in our students and educational community that behaving in a principled and respectful manner is essential. As a principled learner all learners should act with integrity and honesty. Learners should take responsibility for their own actions.
Reflective of the IB definition of academic misconduct (the deliberate or inadvertent behavior that has the potential to result in the student or anyone else gaining an unfair advantage in one or more components of assessment) we have adopted and follow the below policy.
Instructing on academic honesty:
- Within each grade level and course, at the start of any initial academic activity, teachers will model appropriate collaborative behaviors for students within the context of the activity (for example, how much collaboration is acceptable on a homework assignment, how individual work will be determined and assessed on a group project).
- Within classes in which research based writing is taking place, students will receive instruction on the proper methods of citation and paraphrasing. This will include reviewing the district acceptable use policy.
- The school uses a variety of web-based programs and teacher observation to determine if a violation has happened. Students are also instructed on how to use web-based programs to monitor possible breaches prior to submission of papers.
Types & Explanations of Academic Misconduct:
Cheating:
- Using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise.
- Receiving unauthorized assistance (e.g., copying, using crib sheets, stealing exams, using electronic aids/devices, Internet sources, using translation programs, using aids like Cliff's Notes instead of reading the original work) in any academic work or examination.
- Using or attempting to use any unauthorized materials, information or study aids in an examination or academic work.
- Copying an assignment from another person without explicit permission from the teacher. This includes sharing work that should be individually produced and includes obtaining answers from another student with or without their permission.
- Unauthorized use of teacher test materials, answer sheets, computer files, or grading programs.
- Using any type of "crib/cliff notes" on your person, an object, or programmed within graphing calculators, cell phones, or other electronic devices without teacher permission.
- Receiving answers for assignments or exams from any unauthorized source.
- Copying from other students during an exam.
- Discussing or revealing the contents of a test or quiz with students who have not completed the assessment.
- Altering a graded assessment and resubmitting it for a better grade without teacher permission.
- Failing to stop work promptly on an assessment when the time allocated has elapsed.
- Google Translator or similar programs on language acquisition assignments and/or other assessments where language acquisition is being assessed. .
Facilitation:
- Helping or attempting to help another student violate any provision of the Academic Integrity Policy.
- Giving answers to another student for an assignment or exam.
Falsification:
- Making up information/data or a citation in any academic exercise.
- Falsifying or inventing any information, data or citation in any academic work.
- Falsification of results from research or laboratory experiments.
- Written or oral presentation of results from which research was never performed.
Plagiarism:
- Representing the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise
- Using text from another source (e.g. web sites, books, journals, newspapers, etc.) without documenting the source
- Using a direct quotation from a text without quotation marks, even if the source has been cited correctly (using MLA or APA citation style as modeled by your instructors)
- Paraphrasing or summarizing the ideas or text of another work without documenting the source
- Substituting a word or phrase for the original while maintaining the original sentence structure
- Using graphics, visual imagery, video or audio without permission of the author or acknowledgment of the source
- Purchasing or receiving in any other manner a term paper or other assignment that is the work of another person and submitting that assignment as the student's own work
Consequences of Malpractice:
All incidents of academic dishonesty as defined above are documented in Educator's Handbook by the teacher as a minor incident.
This document was created in February 2011 and revised in 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2022. It will be reviewed and amended as needed on an annual basis. The policy will be posted on the school's IB website for public access.