FCPS IB Schools Academic Honesty Policy

Fairfax County Schools encourage students to demonstrate the ability to work interdependently within groups to increase productivity and achieve common goals. Students should act responsibly and ethically. To develop academic honesty in all students, FCPS views cheating and plagiarizing as unacceptable behaviors that have moral and legal implications. Cheating is violating established rules and codes of ethics. Plagiarizing is falsely claiming authorship. Cheating and plagiarizing are serious offenses.

I. Guidelines

Teachers have the responsibility to:

1. Teach or review the correct use of sources and citations when assigning work.
2. Structure conditions during testing to alleviate the possibility of cheating.
3. Specify the types of collaboration that are discouraged and those that are encouraged.

Students have the responsibility to:

1. Avoid situations that might contribute to cheating or plagiarizing.
2. Avoid unauthorized assistance.
3. Use sources in the prescribed manner.
4. Document borrowed materials by citing sources.
5. Avoid plagiarism by using quotation marks for statements taken from others, by acknowledging information and ideas borrowed from any source, and by consulting faculty members about questionable situations.
6. Avoid “cutting” and “pasting” from computer text without proper attribution.

II. Implications

Students who violate “the spirit or the letter of the law” as regards to cheating and plagiarizing must accept responsibility for their actions and the accompanying consequences. Consequences may include:

1. A parent-student-administrator conference.
2. A lowering of the grade or receiving an F for the assignment.
3. An alternative assignment or recompletion of the original assignment.

Interpretation of Academic Honesty Policy at Annandale HS

Rationale

Academic honesty is an essential aspect of teaching and learning. Academic honesty means that one’s own work is authentic and not a reproduction of other people’s work or ideas. It also means that an authentic piece of work is one that is based on the student’s individual and original ideas with the ideas and works of others fully acknowledged and cited properly. Authentic authorship is an expectation at our schools. As IB Learners, we expect our students to demonstrate academic honesty using the attributes of the IB Learner Profile:

• Inquirers: Develop the skills needed to pursue their questions as they conduct inquiry and research
• Knowledgeable: Explore concepts, ideas, and issues that have local and global significance
• Thinkers: Exercise initiative and make reasoned ethical decisions
• Communicators: Express ideas and information confidently and creatively in more than one language
• Principled: Take responsibility of their own actions and the consequences that accompany them, thus acting with integrity and honesty
• Open-minded: Evaluate different perspectives, appreciate other points of view and grow from the experience
• Caring: Show empathy, compassion, and respect towards the needs and feelings of others
• Risk-takers: Work independently to explore new roles, ideas and situations
• Balanced: Manage multiple sources of information and effectively give credit to original authors
• Reflective: Understand their strengths and limitations in order to best support learning

Students Will:

• Avoid situations that might contribute to cheating or plagiarizing.
• Avoid unauthorized assistance.
• Use sources in the prescribed manner.
• Document borrowed materials by citing sources.
• Avoid plagiarism by using quotation marks for statements taken from others, by acknowledging information and ideas borrowed from any source, and by consulting faculty members about questionable situation.
• Avoid “cutting” and “pasting” from computer text without proper attribution.

Teachers Will:

• Provide instruction to students in the Approaches to Learning skills necessary to practice academic honesty, including research skills in the areas of information literacy and media literacy, and collaboration and communication skills to work appropriately with classmates and avoid plagiarism and collusion
• Instruct students in subject-specific practices in appropriate citing, referencing, and forms of intellectual property
• Review the Academic Honesty Policy each year with students as part of teaching the Fairfax County Public Schools Student Rights and Responsibilities

Administrators Will:

• Ensure that all faculty, students and parents have knowledge of the Academic Honesty Policy
• Create a school-wide environment that encourages adherence to and enforcement of the Academic Honesty Policy
• Collaborate with Instructional Council to develop professional development for teachers to assist them in the instruction of Approaches to Learning

Parents Will:

• Discuss academic honesty with their child, as described in the FCPS Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook:

“Honorable school citizens take credit only for work that is their own. Deliberately copying or using the work of others is considered cheating, plagiarism, or forgery.” https://www.fcps.edu/srr/

Where can students go for help?

Students will receive additional support in practicing academic honesty from:

• Media Center Librarians
• provide guidelines on MLA and APA citation formats
• assist students in learning research and referencing skills during orientation and in collaboration with teachers on student research projects
• provide electronic tools to assist students with research and referencing
• support students when working on their MYP Personal Project or DP Extended Essays
• Writing Center
• peer tutors available during Pride Time and Red day lunches
• assistance provided in writing organization, editing, and citations

What does Academic Honesty look like? What does Academic Misconduct look like?

Academic honesty means that one’s own work is authentic and not a reproduction of other people’s work or ideas. An authentic piece of work is one that is based on the student’s individual and original ideas with the ideas and works of others fully acknowledged and cited properly.

Definitions

Academic misconduct is behavior that results in, or may result in, the student gaining an unfair advantage in assignments and assessments. This includes:

• Plagiarism: the representation of the ideas or work of another person as the student’s own. 

Examples:

• • Presenting as one’s own, the works or opinions of someone else without proper acknowledgement through documentation and bibliography/works cited page.
  • Borrowing of the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of materials, or the pattern of thought of someone else without proper acknowledgement through documentation.
• Collusion: supporting the misconduct of another student

Examples:

• • The use of talking, signs, or gestures during any assessment
  • Copying from another student or allowing another student to copy
  • Passing assessment information to members of another class period
• Duplication of work: presenting the same work for different assignments

Example:

• • Submitting a paper or essay which has been previously submitted for evaluation to another teacher.

In addition, academic misconduct includes any other behavior that provides an unfair advantage for a student or that affects the result of another student, such as using prohibited electronic devices or falsifying data.

Consequences

First violation: 

• The administrator and parents/guardians will be notified by the teacher through the discipline referral form.
• The assignment will receive no credit; however, the student will be given the opportunity to make up the assignment or to complete an alternate assignment for full credit.  If the student chooses not to complete the assignment, a grade of zero will be awarded. 
• Additional consequences may be determined at the discretion of the administrator and teacher based on the severity of the first violation.  This may include possible dismissal from all Honor Societies and/or extracurricular activities.

Subsequent violations: 

• The administrator and parents/guardians will be notified by the teacher through the discipline referral form.
• The assignment will be nullified; however, the student will be given the opportunity to make up the assignment or to complete an alternate assignment for reduced credit.  If the student chooses not to complete the assignment, a grade of zero will be awarded. 
• Additional administrative consequences may be instituted to include detention and/or suspension. 
• Dismissal from all Honor Societies and/or extracurricular activities may be recommended.

Procedures for Reporting, Recording & Monitoring

To ensure uniformity and fairness when violations to the academic honesty policy are made, the school will keep central records of each occurrence.  Administrative assistants will enter referral form data into the Student Information System (SIS) on the discipline tab.  Students and parents will have access to this information in SIS.  Administrators and guidance counselors will periodically monitor discipline records. 

Student Rights

Students have the right to expect courtesy, fairness, and respect from school staff members and other students. In disciplinary cases, all students have the right to due process and to fair procedures in determining facts and imposing sanctions.

Review Policy

The Academic Honesty Policy will be reviewed annually by the MYP and DP coordinators in conjunction with the Instructional Council and Student Government Association of Annandale HS.

Portions reprinted with permission from FCPS schools and IBO.

References

International Baccalaureate Organization. Academic Honesty in the IB Educational Context. Cardiff: International Baccalaureate Organization, 2014.

International Baccalaureate Organization. MYP: From principles into practice. Cardiff: International Baccalaureate Organization, 2014.

International Baccalaureat Organization.  Diploma Program Assessment Procedures 2019.  Geneva: International Baccalaureate Organization, 2019.

International Baccalaureate Organization. Handbook of procedures for the Middle Years Programme: Assessment 2019. Geneva: International Baccalaureate Organization, 2019.