Relay regards acts of academic dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism, cheating on assessments, obtaining unfair advantage, and falsification of records or official documents) as serious offenses against the values of intellectual integrity. 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.
Any suspicion of academic dishonesty will be carefully examined in the following manner:
- If a faculty member suspects a student has committed an act of academic dishonesty, the faculty member will alert the dean as soon as possible, including all relevant documentation.
- After alerting the dean, the faculty member will confer with the student, ensuring documentation of communication throughout the process.
- If the student admits to the violation, the faculty member — in consultation with the dean — will administer a sanction commensurate with the offense. The sanction could range from a professionalism deduction to dismissal from the program.
- If the student contests the allegation of academic dishonesty, the case will be reviewed by the dean. The dean’s judgment is final.
- Repeated violations of the academic honesty policy will result in dismissal from the program.
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 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, etc.).
If students feel that there is a compelling reason to turn in portions of the same written work as a colleague, the students must email their faculty members a proposal, including rationale, for the collaboration at least a week in advance of the collaborative submissions. Exceptions to the collaboration policy will be made on a case-by-case basis by the campus Dean’s Office. Students’ reflections should be unique.