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Priya Manohar Associate Professor of Engineering Co-Director SEMS ROC - Research Academic Integrity Policy at RMU

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What is academic integrity (AI) ? Academic Integrity means being honest in your work AI means submitting work that is completely your own work (or your teams work if it is a team-based task) without copying or borrowing anyone elses work AI means being fair it means acknowledging other people if you used some of their work this protects your intellectual property as well as that of other people AI means being respectful to other students, scholars, researchers by not stealing or borrowing their ideas and claiming them as your own

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What is a breach of AI? Plagiarism Cheating Resubmission Fabrication, Falsification of data and information Breaching IP laws - copyright, licensing, fair use laws Facilitation - selling/giving your work to other students so that they may submit it as their own work More information at RMU website at www.rmu.edu/aiwww.rmu.edu/ai

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It is not a crime to learn from others! If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to another scientist of his time Sir Robert Hooke in1676* Newton humbly acknowledges the work done by others and how he has learnt and benefitted from them So, learning from others is not a crime, in fact it is a very good thing and that is why you all are here to learn from your professors, instructors, books, internet, each other but stealing others ideas or work and claiming it to be your own is breaching AI code of ethics *Ref: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/268025.html downloaded 01/12/2015http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/268025.html

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How does plagiarism look like? Exactly identical reports Exactly identical layout Exactly identical errors in solved problems! Exactly identical names of variables! Exactly identical fonts, size, graphs and tables, identical captions, titles, subtitles etc Exactly identical references in exactly the same order A professor knows this is not naturally possible because no two people can come up with even paragraph, let alone an essay, that is exactly the same on any topic Here is an experiment: try writing just ten lines about RMU they will be different from each other for all the students in the class

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Serious Forms of Cheating Asking another student to take a test for you Outsourcing your work on the internet Sharing your RMU password with someone else and they take the test or complete your assignment Taking photos of the test and using smart phone technologies to obtain answers Downloading answers to the assigned problems from publisher's website or some other commercial website Pl. be warned - these offenses may get you suspended!!

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Who is at fault? Person who gives out his/her work Person who copies it all are at fault A common myth I am helping my friend no! in fact your are making him/her more lazy! Your friend does not learn by copying from you.

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What do you do if you get caught? Acknowledge error honestly, apologize and face up the consequences Work with the instructor to remedy the situation Learn from your mistakes mistakes are your real teachers dont repeat your mistakes if you repeated your mistakes it means you did not learn your lesson well enough the first time around

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What happens if you dont do the right thing in Academic Integrity (AI)? Penalty can vary - at a minimum, you will get a zero mark for that task you may or may not a chance to fix that with an alternative task You may feel embarrassed because your own integrity and credibility is in question Would lead to a low grade or even fail grade for the course May get referred to AI Committee Second offense - suspension Third offense expulsion with no possibility of re-admission

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A few last words Keep it simple just do your assigned work and dont do anything silly! Cheating does not help anybody in the long run Dont try to outwit the system - professors are smart, they have access to advanced computer based tools to catch cheating and they were once students themselves, the classes are small, there are usually no TAs or student graders so, they will catch you professors want you to learn and so do you so, why go in the wrong direction? Honesty is the best policy!