To say that the world of higher education is big on integrity is an understatement. Academic communities like Cairn University can only thrive when every member is fully committed to the principles of academic integrity. To ensure students reach their educational goals, Cairn has enforced a number of rules that serve to preserve and maintain academic integrity in all scholastic endeavors.
Students who break these rules, knowingly or accidentally, will be accused of academic misconduct. Accusations of academic misconduct are serious and will be punished through the school's judicial system. Guilty determinations of academic misconduct have been known to jeopardize students' college careers and affect their professional lives down the line as well.
In this article, we'll address how Cairn University handles allegations of academic misconduct and why you need a student defense attorney to assist you through the process once accused.
How Does Cairn University Define Academic Misconduct?
Any behavior that doesn't align with Cairn University's academic integrity guidelines is considered academic misconduct. Since this definition is pretty broad, here are a few examples of the most commonly committed types of academic misconduct at Cairn University.
- Cheating: using or attempting to use unauthorized assistance, material, or study aids in examinations or other academic work or preventing, or attempting to prevent another from using authorized assistance, material, or study aids. Example: using a cheat sheet in a quiz or exam, using a cell phone or other technology to obtain or share information during an exam, altering a graded exam and resubmitting it for a better grade.
- Plagiarism: using the ideas, data, or language of another without specific or proper acknowledgment. Example: copying another person's paper, article, or text from a website and submitting it for an assignment, quoting someone else's ideas without attribution, failing to use quotation marks where appropriate.
- Fabrication: submitting contrived or altered information in any academic exercise. Example: making up data for an experiment, fudging data, citing nonexistent articles, contriving sources.
- Multiple submissions: submitting, without prior permission, any work submitted to fulfill another academic requirement.
- Facilitating academic dishonesty: knowingly helping or attempting to help another violate any provision of the Code. Example: working together on a take-home exam.
- Unfair advantage: attempting to gain unauthorized advantage over fellow students in an academic exercise. Example: gaining or providing unauthorized access to examination materials, obstructing or interfering with another student's efforts in an academic exercise, lying about a need for an extension for an exam or paper, continuing to write even when time is up during an exam, destroying or keeping library materials for one's own use.
Misconduct can occur in any academic situation, including but not limited to, a course search project, independent study, presentation, qualifying examination, preliminary examination, or dissertation.
Sanctions
If an act of academic dishonesty is determined to have occurred, one or more of the following sanctions below will be imposed by the reporting faculty member, depending on the severity of the offense. The decision of the faculty member will be communicated in writing to the student as well as be reported to the Office of Student Life, which is responsible for maintaining student conduct records. The incident will result in an official disciplinary record for the student(s). The following sanctions will be imposed in the event a student is found responsible for academic misconduct.
- Warning
- Requiring a student to redo the assignment, re-take an exam, etc.
- An “F” on the assignment or exam
- Reduction of course grade
- Failure for entire course
- Combination of any of the above sanctions
Multiple or additional offenses will bring, in addition to the above academic consequences, disciplinary action by Student Life.
Appeals
An accused student may appeal a panel's finding of responsibility and/or sanctions within 10 business days of the date of the notice of outcome solely on one or more of the following grounds: (1) procedural error that could have significantly affected the determination of responsibility or sanction(s); (2) new information that was not available at the time of the hearing and that could reasonably have affected the determination of responsibility or sanction(s); excessiveness of the sanction(s).
Academic Integrity Advisor
An academic misconduct violation can jeopardize the academic and professional goals you or your college student have set. If you value the investment you've made into your education and your professional future, contacting a skilled student defense attorney is a must. The attorneys of LLF Law Firm have helped students who've acquired serious academic misconduct charges recover from these allegations, and can do the same for you. Contact them today at 888-535-3686 for more information.
