9. Academic Honesty

To continue to graduate high quality students and to sustain our reputation as a leading institution, Seneca must have the highest standards of academic honesty. Academic honesty means that all Seneca College persons will conduct themselves in an honest and trustworthy manner in all aspects of their academic career. Engaging in any form of academic dishonesty to obtain any type of academic advantage or credit is an offence under this policy and will not be tolerated by the College.

9.1 Academic Honesty Offenses

Offences under this policy include but are not limited to cheating, plagiarism, falsification, impersonation, misrepresentation and procurement. For descriptions and/or specific examples of these academic offences, see Appendix E.

9.2 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as using someone else’s work (words, images, ideas, phrases, signatures, or computations) and presenting it as one’s own, instead of properly documenting every source. For specific examples of plagiarism see Appendix E.

To support Academic Honesty at Seneca College, all work submitted by students may be reviewed for authenticity and originality utilizing software tools and third party services.

In submitting their own work to a third party service, students consent to their submissions undergoing such review and being retained in a database for comparison with other work submitted by students.

9.3 Penalties

The penalty for a first academic honesty offence is a grade of “0” on the work in which the offence occurred, and will result in a comment being placed on the transcript by the Academic Honesty Committee.

The penalty for the second academic honesty offence is an “F” in the subject where the offence occurred, a second comment on the transcript and suspension from the College for a time period determined by the Academic Honesty Committee, normally for a minimum of three (3) semesters. When a student returns to the College, he/she will be placed on Academic Honesty Probation. Any further violation of the Academic Honesty policy will result in College initiated mandatory withdrawal for academic purposes.

The student has the right to appeal the decision of the Academic Honesty Committee, consistent with Academic Policy. Evidence will be kept on file.

The procedure for dealing with academic honesty offences is found in Appendix E.

It is every student’s responsibility to familiarize him/herself with the proper procedure for maintaining academic honesty through the various resources beyond the Academic Policy such as the Student Handbook, the Seneca Libraries website at http://library.senecacollege.ca/Academic_Honesty/index.html Students may seek assistance from Student Services in understanding the policy and procedures for Academic Honesty.