Academic Integrity

 

As part of a class teaching the fundamentals of scholarly research,  you need to write a literature review. This assignment evaluates your ability to analyze, understand, and summarize academic research. To do this, you must create original summaries of the scholarly articles you’ve gathered for the assignment. The articles are long and quite complicated, and you are not sure how to summarize the main ideas. You recall your friends talking about a text-generating platform called ChatGPT and you decide to try it out. You type in a prompt “Summarize the following text:” and copy and paste the first article into ChatGPT.  It then creates a perfect summary for you. You believe the risk of being caught is minimal because you have not copied from anywhere and the text is original. You proceed to scan the rest of the articles through ChatGPT and the summaries for each article. You make minor changes to the text and submit your assignment.

Was it wrong to use ChatGPT to produce article summaries for the literature review? Choose the correct response.

• No, these summaries are not copied from anywhere.

  They are original writing.

• Yes, but I have read these articles myself prior to scanning them through ChatGPT.

• No, because I have made some changes to the text produced by ChatGPT.

• Yes, I should have written the summaries on my own without the assistance of an Al tool.

Your professor assigned the final project that’s worth a lot of marks. It’s also a requirement to pass the class. You don’t know where to begin, and you’re worried about finishing on time. You decide to reach out to a friend who took the class last semester to see if they can help.  Your friend gets back to you quickly and shares their memory of the course being quite brutal.  They also share with you that they put a lot of work into their final project and received a great mark. They suggest using the library to get some research help, but you counter asking if they could send you their final project. They’re hesitant, but you assure them you won’t copy anything and will only take inspiration. Knowing this, your friend agrees to share their project with you.  Several weeks later your friend messages you asking if you had copied their final project.  They had received a breach of academic integrity, as someone who had submitted work identical to the work they had submitted. You tell them you are confused about the assignment expectations, so you submitted their assignment with a few changes.

Was it wrong to share work in this way? Choose the best answer.

• No. Everyone discusses and shares ideas, which is expected in college, so it's not a big deal to share previous assignments.

• Yes. But if your friend is really stressed, you should try to help them.

• Yes. However, you did change some of the words, so it is not a big deal.

• Yes. The expectation is that students submit original work, not someone else's work.

A final essay worth 30% of your grade for the course is due in a few days, and you're not very interested in the topic. You’re feeling quite stressed. You have a lot of assignments due all at once, and you don't know where to start. You try to start the paper while surfing on the web. In an attempt to learn more about this topic, you see an ad for an online essay-writing service. The advertisement claims that a professional writer with a Master’s degree will write a paper on any topic, and those tight deadlines are not an issue. The company’s website also tells you that their papers are original, so you don’t have to worry about getting caught for plagiarism. The risks of being caught are minimal. You are desperate to complete this final essay, so you fill out the online registration form providing information about the assignment, length and due date along with a payment of $200. Just before the deadline, you receive the completed essay. You skim it over and decide that it's acceptable to submit.

You know what you did was wrong, but you feel that the risk was worth it. Did you make the right decision? Choose the best answer.

• No. Paying $200 is a lot for a research report. You should have found a cheaper price.

• No. You submitted work that is not your own. This is considered a breach of academic integrity.

• Yes. As the company's website states, the essay is not plagiarized, so it's not cheating; it's a business

  transaction.

• Yes. You're not interested in this topic, and you don't see the point in spending time learning about

  it.

You are looking through the notes you have taken for one of your courses. You notice they aren’t very detailed and are struggling to understand the material for an upcoming assignment. You reach out to a friend to see if they know of any resources that can help you. Your friend responds by saying they have found old lecture notes on a website called “Course Hero”. They also tell you that if you upload your old course notes, you get free access to the website. You know that using this website to share and access someone else’s notes doesn’t demonstrate academic Integrity, but you want to get a good mark on the assignment since it's worth 40% of your final grade.  Besides, you aren't directly copying the assignment, and the website is free. With this in mind, you agree to use the site. You are unsure if you're going to be violating the academic Integrity policy because the professor already posted all of the course material on SLATE. You think helping other students access them is demonstrating values of academic integrity. Two weeks later, you receive notice your professor found that you put their materials on "Course Hero", and you’ve got a breach notification.

 

Is it okay to share course materials on Course Hero? Choose the best answer.

• Yes. I have legitimate access to the materials as a student.

• No. It is a breach of Sheridan's Academic Policy if the materials you share or post online can help other students cheat.

• Yes. Peer-sharing of study materials is acceptable in online learning.

You have a report due in one of your courses. Although you've written reports before, you've only done a few in English. You're not confident in your English reading and writing skills, and you're feeling quite anxious. You start looking for source material in your native language so you can better understand the research. You find articles you can easily read and feel as though you can take these articles and simply translate them into English. Surely a translation of these articles wouldn’t count as plagiarism, since they are now in different words from the original, right? With that thought in mind, you run the articles through Google Translate and add them to your report. With your report now in English you submit the assignment.

Can using a translation tool for an assignment be considered a breach of academic integrity? Choose the best answer.

• Yes. You used the work of someone else without providing acknowledgement.

• No. The author made all the points you wanted to

  make; you had the same ideas.

• No. You added in some of your own parts and

  changed some of the wording.

• No. You're allowed to use a thesaurus to help you with your writing, so a translation tool should be fine.

You have been asked to write a short reflective paper for one of your courses. The professor explains that a reflective paper is one where you carefully consider your own thoughts and experiences on a certain topic and include these in your paper. The professor has provided a choice of topics and stated that you should choose the one that you best relate to and draw on your own personal knowledge and experience to complete the paper. Your professor also asks that you include material from at least two outside sources and properly cite them. It’s a three-page assignment, and you have chosen the topic of bilingual education because you have grown up speaking two languages. You are passionate about this topic.  You have also worked in various roles with bilingual children in the past. The course readings for the week are on the topic of bilingual education as well. As you work on your paper you find that you have a lot to say on this topic, the words flow easily, and you think this is one of the best papers you have ever written. You don’t bother to read the course readings because you don’t think they would add to your knowledge or make the paper any stronger. Instead, you include the references for the course readings from that week on the last page of your paper. You take the time to format your references in the preferred citation style and submit your assignment to your instructor. The following week your instructor gives back the assignment, and you're shocked to see that you received a low mark and a comment that you had plagiarized.

What could you have done instead? Choose the best answer.

• You included two references at the end of your assignment, but you should have read them and included information from those readings within the body of your paper.

• No idea! You think there must be a mistake: you didn't use anyone else's words or ideas in your paper, and you did include references on the last page of the paper.

• You should have chosen another topic: a topic in which you didn't already have so much related knowledge and experience. That way you could have included information from outside sources.

• You should not have included the course readings in your reference list. Instead, you should have included references for other outside sources.

You are working on a research paper the final assignment for one of your courses. It's due in a few hours and you’re making some final changes before the deadline. As you read through it, you realize that for some of the direct quotations and paraphrase materials that you included in your paper, the in-text citations are incomplete. You have included page numbers but not the author's names. You have a reference list that appears on the last page of your paper. Unfortunately, for each of the incomplete citations in the body of your paper, you can't remember which article you are referring to, or if the matching reference for that citation actually appears in your reference list. You look back at your notes to try and figure it out, but you don’t know any of the reference information within your notes. Your notes just consist of copied and pasted material from several outside sources. You panic: Your professor had specifically asked for both in-text citations and a reference list. You don't want to lose marks, so you read through your reference page and decide to choose from these sources to complete your in-text citations. You fill in each incomplete citation by choosing sources on your reference list at random. You believe that as long as you're giving credit to someone it doesn't matter which source you include. You doubt your professor will take the time to check. Plus, the assignment is due soon and you're running out of time. You finish filling in the missing information at random to complete the in-text citations. You read it over one last time and submit your final paper.

Is what you did an example of plagiarism? Choose the best answer.

• No. Plagiarism is when you don't cite; this paper has

  both in-text citations and a reference list.

• Yes. You did not cite the proper source - this is plagiarism.

• No. There is no way for your professor to know which source the material came from, so it won't be counted

  as plagiarism, just a small error.

One of your professors assigns a paper and gives the class a choice of topics. One of the options is censorship, you have already written a  paper on the same topic for a course you took two years ago when you were a student at another college. For this previous paper, you did a lot of work, your main arguments were strong, and you included many outside sources. Your Mark was a B, but the professor had included a lot of good feedback. You choose this topic again because of the fact you already know a lot about it and are confident you'll receive a good mark. Since the topic is the same as the one for your previous paper, you decide to reuse some of the same content from that previous assignment for this new paper. As you work on your new paper, you use the same arguments and the same evidence, changing words here and there. You change the introduction in order to add in some of the information your new professor has discussed in class. You also incorporate the feedback your previous professor provided on your original paper, which makes your current paper even better. You complete the assignment and submit it to your professor.

Is what you've done wrong? Choose the best answer.

• No. The topics are the same. You have already explored a this topic in your previous assignment, so there's no point in starting all over again.

• No. You are not taking the words and ideas from anyone else. You are the author of the original paper

  and the new paper.

• No. You changed the paper to show that you're learning in the new course. Also, you incorporated the feedback from your previous teacher to show that you learned from her as well.

• Yes. By using the same arguments and evidence, this is considered to be a breach of academic integrity.

You have an online exam today for one of your courses. You didn't study as much as you should have, and you haven't paid much attention to this course. A few hours before the test, you try once again to study, but nothing makes sense. You remember a classmate who always seemed to know the course content. You recall that you exchanged numbers with them, so you send them a message begging this classmate to share their test answers with you. They say they aren’t comfortable sharing their answers with you, so you try to explain to them how stressed you are about failing. They finally agreed to share their answers as long as you don’t tell anyone it was them if you're caught. Your classmate emails you their test answers, and you thank them and complete your test with their answers.

You know that asking a classmate for answers and using those answers was wrong. What should you have done differently? Choose the best answer.

• You should never use messaging apps to communicate with your classmates.

• You should have paid better attention in class, and

  asked for help before the test.

• Nothing. It was wrong, but the professor can't expect that students won't help each other on online tests.

• You should have studied, but it's OK because your professor can't prove that you received help from a

  classmate.

You started writing an online open-book test; the questions are challenging. You realize you should have studied more for this test. These questions are not straightforward multiple-choice questions, and instead require analysis which you cannot find through your course notes or your professor's slides. You recall that you recently registered for an account on a homework help site. Although you haven't used it yet, you know that there's an area on the site where students can post test questions and experts will answer them within half an hour. You know getting your answers in this way is wrong, but you need help. You're pretty sure that your professor can't prove you received answers from a password-protected website, so you can’t get caught cheating. You take screenshots of the questions and post them to the experts. 20 minutes later, you receive answers only minutes before the test ends. Although they don't seem to relate too well to the test questions, you use them anyway. You don't have much time, so you quickly copy what the experts have provided and submit the test.

Was posting to a homework help site and using their answers the right thing to do? Choose the best answer.

• Yes. Open-book tests should mean that you can consult the Internet, course notes, and the textbook. This test was

  difficult and unfair.

• No, but your professor will never know, so you can't get

  caught.

• Yes. Technically it is cheating, but homework help exports/tutors are good resources for learning the material

  and therefore, getting their help isn't so bad.

• No. You submitted test answers that you requested from an outside source. This is cheating.