Academic Honesty Guide > Part I: Understanding Academic Honesty at Grinnell > Section 2: Students’ Frequently Asked Questions about Honesty
FAQs about the Academic Honesty Policy
Certainly, there are many other forms of academic honesty, some of which are discussed in the Grinnell College Academic Honesty Policy (“Honesty in Academic Work”). For example, it violates both policies and principles of academic honesty to forge (or even to “fudge”) your results on a scientific experiment or to do someone else’s work for them.
Here are four examples:
- If you’ve written a computer program that doesn’t work, your instructor asks for sample output, and you type that output by hand, your work is forged and not academically honest.
- If you do not gather data in lab (or lose it) and write down some numbers that “seem reasonable,” you have forged your results.
- If you do not gather data in lab and instead use a classmate’s data without your instructor’s permission, you have forged your results.
- If you report or analyze only some of the data you collected (e.g., the results that are consistent with your predictions) or change some or all of the data to fit the expected outcome, you have forged your results.
Here are two examples:
- Writing a paper or completing a homework assignment for someone else (at Grinnell or elsewhere) is a violation of the academic honesty policy.
- Letting someone copy your lab results is a violation of the academic honesty policy.
It depends. AI technologies are evolving quickly, and there are many potential ways to use them on an assignment, including as a research aid or to help improve grammar, punctuation, and word choice. Always consult your course syllabus, the assignment prompt, and your instructor to understand what tools, resources, or sources of information you are allowed to use for your assignment and how to appropriately cite or acknowledge them.
If you are given no guidance, then it’s probably fine to use AI tools for research purposes. But beware: these tools sometimes provide inaccurate information or generate citations of sources that don’t exist. It is therefore your responsibility to fact-check any information, including citations, you get from an AI assistant. For example, if an AI assistant tells you that a certain scholar said something that you want to use for a paper you are writing, you should confirm that the scholar exists, check the accuracy of the quote or paraphrase, locate the text being quoted or paraphrased, and cite that text directly.
Using AI technology to help edit an essay can sometimes improve your writing, but it can also change your meaning and flatten your prose. Make sure that you review any suggestions made by AI tools, including assistants embedded in your writing software, to ensure that your ideas, your meaning, and your voice are maintained through your revision process. As with any form of assistance you receive, you should acknowledge and describe this assistance in a footnote or acknowledgments section of your work.
Any component of an assignment that you are required to submit to the instructor is subject to the same academic honesty rules as a final draft. Many instructors “scaffold” assignments, requiring students to turn in an annotated bibliography and partial and/or full paper drafts before the final version is due. Drafts created as part of your own process or for discussion with a professor, writing mentor, or Writing Center instructor are typically not held to the same standard. However, bear in mind that citing sources as you write helps to prevent inadvertent plagiarism that might result if you copy and paste a quote into a paper, intending to add a citation later, and then forget to do so. It’s in your interest to signal quotes carefully and cite sources accurately at every stage of the writing process. If you have questions, ask your instructor.
Plagiarism is an academic offense. A plagiarist participates in academic conversation under false pretenses by failing to make clear how they have derived the ideas in the work (for example, by not citing, by paraphrasing badly, by collaborating without attribution, or by neglecting to give credit for ideas). In addition to having ethical implications, at Grinnell College this behavior may have negative conduct outcomes.
Copyright violation is a legal offense. A copyright violator uses work another person has created without honoring the rights that belong to the creator. These rights include publishing, reproducing the work, preparing derivative works from it, distributing copies, and performing or displaying the work. Under certain conditions you may use copyrighted material without permission. These conditions include fair use, which is decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the purpose, nature, amount, and effect of your use.
For more information on copyright and fair use, review the College’s “Intellectual Property” policies at College Policies.
FAQs about the Academic Honesty Process
The College has formal procedures for fairly adjudicating possible violations of the academic honesty policy. Instructors are required to submit possible violations to the College’s Academic Integrity Officials (AIOs), who will oversee a review of the case.
Once an instructor submits a possible violation to an AIO for review, all communication regarding the case will be facilitated by the AIO. Your instructor will not be able to discuss the case with you outside of designated meetings until a determination in the case is made. For complete information, see the penultimate section of the full policy (“Honesty in Academic Work”), entitled “Process for Review of Alleged Violations of the Honesty Policy.”
Instructors are required by the College to report potential violations of the academic honesty policy, but this report alone does not establish whether a student has violated the policy. It is the job of the Academic Integrity Officials (AIOs) to determine the facts by reviewing materials presented by the instructor and talking with the student to learn their point of view.
After your instructor submits a report to the AIO, they may be involved in further inquiry into your case but not in the decision made by the AIO. The instructor is bound by the AIO’s findings and determination of the outcome. Since you will be continuing as a student in the class, this avoids creating an adversarial situation in which your instructor is investigating or interrogating you and also ensures equity and consistency in the process.
Academic Integrity Officials are faculty members who are appointed and trained to serve in this role as part of their work at the College. One AIO will serve as the primary reviewer for each case and have the responsibility for communication with the student and instructor, as well as the final decision, though they may consult with another AIO in evaluating evidence and making a determination.
If you elect to participate in a facilitated conversation as part of an academic honesty case review, the AIO will schedule a time for you, your instructor, and the AIO to meet together. The goal of this meeting will be to establish a mutual understanding of what the instructor’s concerns are and ensure you have an opportunity to respond to those concerns. The AIO will use this meeting to discern the facts of the case and will conduct the meeting in a way that respects the role of both the student and the instructor in this process. The full process is outlined earlier in this guide; see “Process for Review of Alleged Violations of the Honesty Policy.”
Students preparing for a facilitated conversation should review the academic honesty policy and collect any notes or information relevant to the case. Prior to the meeting, students will have the option to meet separately with the AIO to discuss what will happen in the meeting and ask any questions about the process. Students can also bring another member of the campus community to the meeting for support, although that person is not allowed to participate in the conversation. Students are invited to put their thoughts in writing, and, whether they share their thoughts in writing or not, they often find the experience of writing to be clarifying and helpful.
The AIO reviews all of the information available and makes a decision that they believe is in the best interest of the student and of the College.
Outcomes vary based on a careful review of many factors in the case. These outcomes can range from failure on the assignment and academic honesty probation to a lowered overall course grade, ineligibility to graduate with honors, or some combination of these. The AIO typically reserves the most serious outcomes, such as suspension or dismissal from the College, for egregious cases including repeat findings of responsibility. The Committee on Academic Standing’s Guidelines for Academic Honesty Outcomes are available upon request from the Office of the Registrar. These are strictly guidelines, and the AIO reserves the right, when appropriate, to mitigate or enhance outcomes in individual cases. The AIO’s decision may be appealed following the procedures outlined in the “Process for Review of Alleged Violations of the Honesty Policy.” Additionally, the AIO reserves the right, when appropriate, to refer students to the relevant institutional body for conduct review.
At the time that the AIO finds a student responsible, the student, the Registrar’s Office, and the student’s adviser are notified both of the finding of responsibility and the outcome. The instructor of the course in which the student violated the policy is informed that the student was found responsible and the resulting outcome, but only as it relates to the grade in the course. Additionally, if the student gives permission for someone at the College to provide information to an employer or another college or university, information may be shared. For example, students sometimes ask the dean of students or the registrar’s office to complete forms relating to transfer or graduate study at another institution (e.g., law school) on which the College is required to indicate whether or not the student has been found responsible for academic honesty or other conduct violations. These forms also typically ask for clarification regarding the type of violation and consequences. If the request occurs more than five years after graduation or withdrawal from the College, the College will state that records are no longer available.
If you go through the review process for a case of potential academic honesty but are found “not responsible,” no notation will be placed on your educational record regarding the allegation nor the review.
The Office of the Registrar tracks the data to answer this question. In the past five years, faculty members brought forward a yearly average of 58 cases involving 50 students to the Committee on Academic Standing. Of these, 41 students on average were found responsible for violating the College’s academic honesty policy.