Plagiarism and Netiquette Violations

Faculty teaching Chesapeake Online courses must enforce plagiarism or Netiquette violations. If there are any violations, Chesapeake College Student Code of Conduct policies must be followed and documented.

Academic Dishonesty Policy - Academic Integrity

When faculty choose to report to the Office of the Vice President for Workforce and Academic Programs an incident of academic dishonesty in their class, the name of the student will be recorded, along with the nature of the offense and the course and semester in which it occurred.

The VP’s office will then send a note to the student, the student’s advisor and the student’s instructor (who reported the offense).

The normal appeals process remains in effect throughout this scenario: initial appeal by the student alone to the instructor, then to the Dean, and then finally to the VP.

1. A first offense will result in an F or a zero for the assignment;
2. A second offense will result in an F for the course (regardless of whether the second offense occurred in a class different from the first offense); the student may not withdraw from the class to avoid the F grade;
3. A third offense will result in suspension from the College for a semester; the suspension will commence at the end of the semester in which the infraction occurred. Re-admission will be subject to approval by the CAAS.
4. The College reserves the right to consider alternative sanction for academic dishonesty commensurate with the magnitude and seriousness of the alleged offense.

To support Academic Integrity in online courses, Chesapeake College utilizes the following:

Unichek - Plagiarism Detection Software

Chesapeake College has an agreement with the Unicheck, an educational tool that helps prevent or identify plagiarism from Internet resources. Faculty members may use the tool in their courses by requiring that assignments be submitted electronically and checked by Unicheck. The Unicheck Similarity Report will indicate the amount of original text in your work and whether all material that you quoted, paraphrased, summarized, or used from another source is appropriately referenced. Student papers are protected by FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) as they are educational records that contain personally identifiable information. Unicheck stores and protects confidential and personally identifiable information with appropriate measures.

Netiquette

Netiquette- online jargon for “Internet etiquette,” is a series of customs or guidelines for maintaining civilized and effective communications in online discussions and email exchanges. When composing a message, it is important to carefully consider your audience and the message you want to convey because you don't have the benefit of the facial expressions, voice inflections, and body gestures that accompany face-to-face conversations. Here are some netiquette techniques:

• Use a meaningful title in the subject line. The subject line of your message should clearly describe the content of your email message.
• Use uppercase and lowercase letters. An email that's typed in all uppercase means that you're “shouting.”
• Be careful what you send. Treat your messages as though they are postcards that can be read by anyone. Remember that all laws governing copyright, slander, and discrimination apply to email.
• Be polite. Avoid wording that could sound inflammatory or argumentative. If you would not say it face-to-face, don't say it in an email.
• Quality matters! Use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling when sending emails.
• Use smileys and text messaging shorthand cautiously. Smileys and other emoticons can help convey the intent behind your words. However, emoticons should only be used in correspondence with people who understand them.