The Code of Student Academic Integrity

The Code of Student Academic Integrity governs the responsibility of students to maintain integrity in academic work, defines violations of the standards, describes procedures for handling alleged violations of the standards, and lists applicable penalties. Except in cases of Research Misconduct, as set forth in Chapter 3, Section III.2 of the Code, the following behavior or complicity in the following behavior (see examples in Supplemental Procedures) is considered Academic Misconduct under the Code: 

• Cheating means using or attempting to use materials, or giving assistance or materials without Authorization to another in any academic exercise that could result in gaining or helping another to gain academic advantage. Cheating includes, but is not limited, to the following actions:
  • Copying - copying from another’s assignment, examination, or other academic exercise;
  • Use of Unauthorized Materials - using materials or equipment in connection with an assignment, examination, or other academic exercise which have not been authorized by the faculty member, including but not limited to, notes, calculator, websites, Artificial Intelligence, and/or other technology;
  • Misrepresentation - permitting another to substitute for one’s self in an academic exercise, or submitting of an academic exercise that has been prepared by another;
  • Unauthorized Collaboration - communicating about and/or sharing the work or effort in an academic exercise with another individual or individuals without Authorization. 
• Fabrication means providing fabricated information, including inventing or counterfeiting information, in any form in an academic exercise. 
• Failure to Comply means failing to comply with a specific instruction related to a condition of protecting academic integrity that has been clearly communicated in a particular course, syllabus, test, assessment, assignment, or other academic exercise.
• Falsification means altering without Authorization any data or information, regardless of communication method (e.g., e-mail or other electronic communication), in an academic exercise. 
• Misuse of Academic Materials means sharing, distributing, altering, acquiring, damaging, or making inaccessible academic materials without Authorization, that could result in gaining or helping another to gain an academic advantage. See examples.
• Multiple Submission means submitting academic work or substantial portions of the same academic work (including oral reports) in more than one academic exercise or publication without Authorization. 
• Plagiarism means presenting the words or ideas of another as one’s own words or ideas, including failing to properly acknowledge a source, unless the ideas or information are common knowledge. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to: 

  Verbatim Plagiarism - copying word-for-word a section of someone else’s work, without attribution and without quotation marks. 

  Inadequate/Uncited Paraphrasing - Failure to cite the rewording of another person’s original text, and/or presenting another person’s concepts or ideas as one’s own without proper attribution. This can include, but is not limited to, changing only a few words or altering the sentence structure from the original source and/or using Artificial Intelligence without citation. 

  Failing to properly acknowledge a source - Giving incorrect and/or not including information about a source in accordance with the citation style. This may include, but is not limited to, missing in-text citations, missing or omitted sources, and/or using text generated by Artificial Intelligence without attribution.

  Self-plagiarism - the use of one’s own previous work in another context without indicating that it was used previously.

  Mosaic plagiarism - Patchwriting, and/or reusing a mix of word, phrases, and ideas from a source without indicating which words and ideas have been borrowed and/or without properly citing the source.

A full explanation of these definitions, and a description of procedures used in cases where student violations are alleged, is found in the complete text of University Policy 407, The Code of Student Academic Integrity and its Supplemental Procedures, as they may be modified from time to time.  Students are advised to contact the Dean of Students Office or visit legal.uncc.edu/policies/up-407 to ensure they consult the most recent edition of the Code.