Academic Misconduct

Academic misconduct is taken seriously at Ambrose University as it undermines our academic standards and affects the integrity of each member of our learning community.
 

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty is defined as any attempt to obtain credit for academic work through fraudulent, deceptive or dishonest means.
 

Cheating
Cheating is a serious form of academic dishonesty. Cheating includes, but is not limited to:

• sitting for an examination by surrogate or acting as a surrogate;
• tampering or attempting to tamper with examinations, grades or class records;
• communicating with another student during an examination in a dishonest way;
• bringing into an examination any textbook, note book, paper, information or electronic device not authorized by the instructor or examiner;
• consulting any person or materials outside the examination room without permission to do so;
• attempting to read other students’ examination papers, or allowing another student to read an examination paper.
   

Plagiarism
Plagiarism involves presenting ideas, words or work from other sources as one’s own. All papers and materials submitted for a course must be the student’s original work unless the sources are cited. Any work submitted in this course is expected to be the student's own original work. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and is considered fraud or theft. Submitting academic work produced with unauthorized assistance or materials is expressly prohibited. Plagiarism can also occur by accident when a student fails or forgets to give credit to another person’s ideas or words. For this reason, any work submitted that gives clear evidence of plagiarism, whether committed deliberately or naively, will receive a grade of zero.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• submitting work previously submitted in another course without the consent of the instructor;
• representing the words, ideas or work of another as one’s own in any academic exercise without proper documentation;
• using text written by a generation system as one’s own (e.g., entering a prompt into an artificial intelligence tool and using the output in your work);
• conducting any act that defrauds the academic process.

Nearly all forms of plagiarism can be avoided by giving credit to others whenever using:

• another person’s idea, opinion or theory;
• any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, i.e., any pieces of information that are not common knowledge;
• quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words;
• a paraphrase or summary of another person’s spoken or written words.
   

Penalties and Procedures for Academic Dishonesty

If an instructor finds sufficient evidence of academic dishonesty on your part, you will be subject to penalty. Any form of academic dishonesty may result in a zero grade on the assignment, loss of credit in that course, suspension or other administrative action. Where there is reason to believe you are in violation of an academic standard outlined in the academic policies, the following process will be in effect:

Normally, the respective faculty member will deal with the matter, although the appropriate Dean may be involved at the request of the faculty member. Faculty members have the authority and responsibility to assess penalties for academic dishonesty, which will normally be an ‘F’ on the work so compromised.

In any event, the matter will be reported to the Dean, and a written record will be kept of the violation in your permanent file. The Dean has the authority to impose any penalty considered appropriate for the infraction. The most severe penalty imposed will be a recommendation to the President that you be dismissed from the University.

If your case has been referred to the Dean by your instructor, you may appear before the Dean to present your case. Whenever you appear to present your case before an individual or committee, you may bring one other person who is able to support you. However, this person may not be professional legal counsel.  

You have the right to appeal a decision made in response to academic dishonesty, academic probation or suspension from Ambrose University on the following grounds (see Procedures for Appeal):

• there is evidence available that was not considered in the decision;
• there is evidence of prejudicial treatment in the decision; or the appropriate process, as outlined in the Academic Calendar, was not followed.

Credential Rescission

If Ambrose determines that credential rescission is warranted due to fraudulent documentation, the Dean (or designate) of the appropriate Faculty may make the recommendation for rescission to the Vice President Academic. The original conferring of a degree, diploma or certificate may be permanently deleted from the student’s academic record. A notation of “<Degree/Diploma/Certificate> Rescinded” and the date of rescission will appear permanently on the student transcript.