Relay regards acts of academic dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism [including self-plagiarism], cheating on assessments, obtaining unfair advantage, and falsification of records or official documents) as serious offenses against the values of intellectual integrity. Assignments at Relay are designed to support students' growth and development as teachers, therefore students’ work products should be unique.
As such, Relay will treat any deliberate use of others’ work without citation as plagiarism. Students who use school- or district-provided materials, or materials from a published curriculum, must cite their sources in the text in such a way as to make clear which portions of the work came from sources other than the students themselves. The majority of a submitted assessment should be students’ original written work.
Teaching is a highly collaborative profession. Therefore, verbal collaboration with colleagues is permitted, provided that all collaborators share equally in the completion of the assessment and that all collaborators demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary to complete the work. All collaboration should be only verbal in nature, and students should submit unique, individual written work for each assessment. Students must list collaborator(s) on the assessment template. Failure to list a collaborator on an assessment will, at minimum, negatively affect students’ assessment scores and may lead to additional academic sanctions (e.g., overall course-score penalty, resubmission of an assessment).
If students feel that there is a compelling reason to turn in portions of the same written work as a colleague, or portions of a previously submitted assignment, the students must email their faculty members a request for permission, including the rationale for the collaboration or reuse, at least one week in advance of the submission. Relay will treat any submission that is proven to be authored by students and reused or repurposed from a previous submission or publication, without the explicit written consent of the course instructor, as self-plagiarism.
Any suspicion of academic dishonesty will be carefully examined in the following manner:
- If faculty members suspect students have committed an act of academic dishonesty, faculty members will alert the Office of the Provost of Teacher Preparation as soon as possible, including all relevant documentation.
- After alerting the dean, faculty members will confer with students, ensuring documentation of communication throughout the process.
- If students admit to the violation, faculty members — in consultation with the dean — will administer a sanction commensurate with the offense. The sanction could range from a grade deduction to dismissal from the program.
- If students contest the allegation of academic dishonesty, the case will be reviewed by the Office of Student Affairs.
- Repeated violations of the academic honesty policy will result in dismissal from the program.
Exceptions to the academic-dishonesty policy will be made on a case-by-case basis by the Office of the Vice Provost of Teacher Education. Appeals of academic-dishonesty policy decisions may be made to the Office of Student Affairs.