Code of Academic Integrity

University of the People fosters a spirit of honesty and integrity fundamental to a university community. As an academic community whose fundamental purpose is learning and the pursuit of knowledge, every individual at UoPeople is responsible for following accepted standards of academic integrity and for sharing a commitment to upholding these values in all academic pursuits.

University of the People students are expected to work diligently to ensure that all assignments, exams or other coursework submitted represents the student’s original work and follows acceptable academic practices. Students are encouraged to work together, as group efforts and study groups are a wonderful tool to facilitate learning and foster a deeper understanding of material in a course. However, students must submit their own individual work at all times unless instructed to participate in group work as part of a course requirement.

Sources must be documented through acceptable scholarly references and citations, and the extent to which the sources have been used must be apparent to the reader.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated at any time; students are required to learn and be personally responsible for educating themselves about plagiarism and the appropriate forms of citation and referencing sources. Students who need assistance and/or have questions concerning use of outside resources or collaboration on assignments should contact their Course Instructors and/or review the materials in the Learning Resource Center for the English programs and academic.affairs@ar.uopeople.edu for the Arabic programs.

Under no circumstances are students allowed to publicly share (for example on blogs, websites, social media, databases) their work completed at or for University of the People until two calendar years from the end of the student’s final term of study. Students are also prohibited from publicly sharing the works or course materials of another student.

It is the students’ responsibility for following these standards and for sharing a commitment to upholding these values in all academic pursuits. If these are not followed, Instructors have the authority to assign a zero to the assignment and deduct points, as they find appropriate.

All student work and scholarship must be free of fraud and deception including:

• • • • Plagiarism—the unintentional or intentional representation of the words or ideas of another as one’s own work in any academic exercise.
      • Fabrication—falsifying documents, changing or inventing data, citing sources not consulted, and misrepresenting citations.
      • Unauthorized Assistance—completion of an academic exercise or exam by someone other than the student, using or receiving copies of the work of someone who had previously taken the UoPeople course, or collaborating without acknowledging the collaboration. While collaboration is a key element to a positive University of the People learning experience, it is critical that students acknowledge any collaboration and its extent in all submitted course work.
      • Misrepresentation—lying or misrepresenting a student’s personal situation to a University member in attempt to receive special circumstances, permissions, quiz and/or exam resets, or extensions.
      • Collusion—assisting another student in committing an act of academic dishonesty, including providing information about or copies of one’s own work from a course that had been previously taken at UoPeople or or contacting students to request certain scores on peer graded assignments.

All members of the academic community, including instructional personnel, students, and University administrators are expected to assist in maintaining the highest level of integrity and to report all incidents that violate academic honesty. Students encountering suspected cases of cheating should discreetly report the violator to their Course Instructor. This may be done without informing an instructor. Specifically, if academic misconduct is suspected in a Discussion Forum posting or any other work product, students should contact their Course Instructor and should not assign the student a grade as part of the peer assessment process.