The Academic Honor Program is designed to promote individual responsibility and integrity in academic affairs and to develop an atmosphere conducive to serious independent scholarship. Allegheny’s Honor Code is different than those of many other colleges because it is a student code, developed and upheld by the students themselves rather than imposed by the College administration.
A voluntary honor system was established in 1960, and by 1962 over two-thirds of the student body participated in the program. The following year, the student body voted to make the honor program mandatory. This decision, also approved by the faculty and administration, first applied to the class that entered the College in 1964. Every three years since 1990, the Honor Committee conducts a student referendum to determine if the student body wishes to continue the honor system. The Honor Code has consistently been supported by an overwhelming majority of students. The Honor Program operates under the following Honor Code:
Article I
The Honor Program shall apply to all work submitted for academic credit or to meet non-credit requirements for graduation at Allegheny. This includes all work done in class (examinations, quizzes, and laboratory work), all papers, and any other material so designated by the instructor.
All students who have enrolled in the College will work under the Honor Program. The College assumes that the integrity of each student and of the student body as a whole will be upheld. A primary responsibility of each student is the maintenance of honesty in one’s own academic work. In addition, it is the moral obligation of each student to help maintain the integrity of the entire College community.
Article II
By virtue of matriculation in the College, each student acknowledges the following:
I hereby recognize and pledge to fulfill my responsibilities, as defined in the Honor Code, and to maintain the integrity of both myself and the College community as a whole.
Article III
Section 1
If one student observes another committing what appears to be an act of dishonesty in academic work it is the observer’s responsibility to take the appropriate action. Students are encouraged to inform either the instructor or a member of the Honor Committee. However, whatever action the observer takes must fulfill the obligation to uphold the integrity of the College community. Failure to do so is as injurious to the honor of the College community as is the observed act of dishonesty and constitutes an infraction of the Honor Code.
Section 2
The following practices are considered to be violations of the Honor Code in examinations, tests, quizzes, and in laboratory and computing exercises, and in any other assigned coursework: any attempt to receive or give unauthorized assistance from written, printed, or recorded aids, from any person, or from another’s work. Any attempt to receive or give unauthorized assistance by means of an electronic device (cell phones, PDAs, etc) is also a violation of the Honor Code.
Section 3
Plagiarism is defined as using the ideas or words of another without citing the sources from which the ideas or words are taken. In take-home examinations, papers, and reports, the following must be carefully observed:
- Any sequence of words taken verbatim from another source not original with the student must be enclosed in quotation marks and its source fully and accurately identified. Such material must be quoted accurately.
- Any sequence of words taken verbatim from any other work of the student must be enclosed in quotation marks and its source fully and accurately identified. (See Section 4)
- Where the ideas of another are paraphrased or interpreted, quotation marks cannot be used. In these cases, the student must fully and accurately cite the source. In addition, the language and sentence structure must be that of the student and not of the original source author. While each instructor who assigns a paper, report, or examination may direct students to a particular style for footnote and bibliographic documentation, the rules noted above must be followed. Ignorance here or in any other part of the code is no excuse.
Section 4
No work submitted for one course may be submitted also for another course except with the explicit approval of both instructors.
Section 5
Instructors are expected to explain their policies regarding help received in any assigned work for their course to each class at the start of each term, preferably including the material in a printed syllabus for the course. However, it remains the student’s responsibility to know and to understand these policies.
Article IV
Section 1
Tests and examinations at Allegheny need not be proctored. Instructors may remain in the room or in a nearby room but must remain in the building to be available to answer questions that may arise during the course of the examination.
Section 2
Examinations are confined to the building in which they are given. Students shall have freedom of movement within that building. Students may not leave the building or take materials related to the exams into restrooms unless explicitly permitted to do so by the instructor, or unless the instructor declares the test to be written at home or other parts of the campus. Additionally, exams may not be taken behind a locked door. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the door to the room remains unlocked during the entire exam.
Section 3
Regardless of where the test or examination is taken, the student is responsible for obtaining any changes or corrections. Instructors are not under obligation to search out students to provide this information. Furthermore, the exam must be handed in at the time requested.
Section 4 – Honor Code Pledge
In recognition of the responsibilities of the Honor Program, a student, when submitting a test or paper, shall note “the work is mine unless otherwise cited” and sign their full name in signature. If a student neglects to do this, the instructor must notify the student and allow an opportunity for signing the paper. Moreover, work is not to be considered as graded until the pledge appears. The lack of a pledge does not exempt any work from the Honor Code. For electronically submitted assignments, each professor may determine how their students will recognize the pledge.
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