(Extracted from AIT Faculty Bulletin 2007-2009 and from
the AIT Academic Bulletin and Handbook 2007-2009)

The University is an academic community whose mission is to promote scholarship through the acquisition, preservation and transmission of knowledge. Fundamental to this goal is the institution’s dedication to academic integrity. Providing an atmosphere that promotes honesty and the free exchange of ideas is the essence of academic integrity. In this setting all members of the University have an obligation to uphold high intellectual and ethical standards.

It is the responsibility of the faculty to impart not only knowledge but also respect for knowledge. It is also the professional responsibility of all faculty members of AIT to explain the importance of honesty and respect for knowledge in order to ensure an academic environment that encourages integrity.

The AIT community takes seriously its responsibilities regarding academic honesty. Academic integrity is absolutely essential to ensure the validity of the grading system and maintain high standards of academic excellence. In addition, all members of the AIT community, including faculty, must exhibit behaviors exemplifying academic honesty and encourage such behaviors in others.

To establish such an environment, students must recognize that they are responsible for their own learning. Specifically, it is the responsibility of students to protect their own work from inappropriate use by others and to protect the work of other people by providing proper citation of ideas and research findings to the appropriate source. This includes the obligation to preserve all educational resources, thereby permitting full and equal access to knowledge.

A violation of academic integrity as an instance of academic dishonesty can occur in many ways. At AIT  instances of academic dishonesty are:

1. Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one’s own. Acts of plagiarism include copying parts of a document without acknowledging and providing the source for each quotation or piece of borrowed material. The rules against plagiarism apply whatever the source of the work relied upon may be, whether printed, stored on a compact disc or other media, found on the Web/Internet. Students are expected to submit and present work that is their own with proper documentation and acknowledgment when the work of others is consulted and used.

Using or extracting another person’s concepts, experimental results or conclusions, summarizing another person’s work or, where there is collaborative preparatory work, submitting substantially the same final version of any material as another person constitutes plagiarism.  It is the responsibility of the person writing to make sure that he/she acknowledges within the writing where the “sourced” information, ideas and facts come from. 

The basic principles are that you should not attempt to pass off the work of another person as your own, and it should be possible for a reader to check the information and ideas that you have used by going to the original source material. Acknowledgment should be sufficiently accurate to enable the source to be located speedily.

Plagiarism can be intentional by deliberately presenting the work of others as one’s own, or inadvertent by accidentally omitting or erroneously citing sources.  Specific examples of plagiarism that can occur in research papers, laboratory reports, written reports, oral presentations as well as other assignments are:

(i) Failure to use quotation marks: sources quoted directly must be shown with quotation marks in the body of the work or  project report and with the appropriate citation in the references, notes or footnotes

(ii) Undocumented paraphrasing: sources “put into one’s own words” must have the source cited properly in the body of the work or  project report and in references, notes or footnotes

(iii) Creating false documentation: purposefully presenting wrong information in references or citations or manufacturing false information used in references, notes and footnotes.
2. Cheating on Examinations
(i) Looking and/or copying from another student’s paper during an examination or in-class assignment

(ii) Allowing another student to look or copy from one’s work during an examination or in-class assignment

(iii) Possessing crib sheets, answer sheets and other information during an examination or in-class assignment not authorized by the instructor

(iv) Writing an answer to an in-class examination or assignment and submitting it as written in class

(v)  Taking an examination for another student

(vi) Allowing or arranging for a second party to take an examination or other in-class assignment

(vii) Allowing one’s own work to be copied and submitted by another student

(viii) Altering or falsifying examination or assignment results after they have been evaluated by the instructor and returned
3. Other infractions
(i) Possessing papers, assignments, examinations, reports, laboratory or workshop reports or other assignments that have not formally been released by the instructor

(ii) Purchasing a paper or assignment from an online source, paper mill, another student, or other source and submitting it, wholly or in part, as one’s own work

(iii) Possessing another student’s work without permission

(iv) Writing or creating a research paper, written report, laboratory report or other work for another student

(v) Submitting the same work for two different classes without the approval by both faculty members teaching both classes

(vi)  Falsifying University documents

(vii) Presenting false documents or forged documents

(viii) Destroying, vandalizing, altering and/or removing library materials without authorization

(ix) Falsifying data: Altering or falsifying another student’s data, laboratory work, research, assignments or written materials.

Students at AIT are expected to meet the highest standards of personal, ethical and moral conduct possible. Good conduct and academic honesty are fundamental to the mission of the University as an institution devoted to the pursuit of excellence in scholarship and research, and to the service of society. 

Student misconduct includes student academic misconduct and also encompasses conduct which impairs the reasonable freedom of other persons to pursue their studies or research or to participate in the life of the University.

1. Academic Misconduct

Student Academic Misconduct means:

• breach of such rules or guidelines relating to student academic conduct as may be prescribed by the University
• misconduct relating to assessment or examinations; and
• any other conduct (the general nature of which has been made known to students) regarded as student academic misconduct according to current academic usage. 

The following behaviors would be considered as academic misconduct:

Misconduct concerning examinations:

• taking unauthorized materials into an examination hall/room;
• impersonation in examinations;
• permitting another student to copy answers in an examination;
• exchanging notes between students in an examination;
• improperly obtaining prior knowledge of an examination paper and using that

      knowledge  in the examination;

• removing an examination paper from an examination room when it is specified

      that the paper is not to be retained by the student.

Misconduct concerning academic works:

• failing to acknowledge the source of material in an assignment;
• quoting without the use of quotation marks even if the source is acknowledged;
• plagiarism; 
• submitting work for assessment knowing it to be the work of another person.

Misconduct through misrepresentation

• submitting a falsified medical certificate;
• submitting a falsified academic transcript; 
• submitting a falsified reference letter.

2. Social Misconduct

Student misconduct of a kind that impairs the reasonable freedom of other persons to pursue their studies or research or to participate in the life of the University includes such activities as:

• breach of any rule relating to student conduct at the University;
• conduct which unduly disrupts or interferes with a class, laboratory session,  a meeting or any other official activity within the University;
• conduct detrimental to University’s property, such as stealing, destroying or deliberately damaging building, furniture or  laboratory equipment;
• stealing, destroying, impairing the accessibility of, or defacing any part of  the University’s library collection;
• using the University’s computing or communications facilities in a manner which is illegal or which will be detrimental to the rights and properties of others;
• acting so as to cause students or faculty or other persons within the University to fear for their personal safety;
•  refusing or failing to identify oneself truthfully when so required by a member of the academic staff or other officers of the University.