Department of Communication
Policy on Academic Integrity
The department holds the highest standards of academic honesty for Boston College Communication majors. The maintenance of these standards is essential to the basic functioning of the department as an academic community, and makes possible the conduct of fair, meaningful, and worthwhile educational experiences. Because the faculty of this department takes academic honesty so seriously, we remind all students in all Communication courses of the academic integrity statement signed by all students upon matriculation at Boston College.
Please re-read the statement carefully. Instances of cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty or collusion will be treated seriously within the department of Communication. Sanctions for such breaches of academic integrity will include failure of the course, ejection from the major, and/or expulsion from Boston College. All cases will be referred to the department chairperson or the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
In order to help ensure honesty in written work submitted as part of the course requirements for courses within the communication department, the department requires that ALL written assignments for ALL department courses be handed in on diskette as well as on paper. The diskettes will routinely be checked for plagiarized material through a professional service that analyzes the content of the work against a broad range of Internet and on-line databases. Written work will not be accepted unless it is accompanied by a diskette version.
Statement on Academic Integrity from the College of Arts and Sciences
The College [of Arts and Sciences] expects all students to adhere to the accepted norms of intellectual honesty in their academic work. Any forms of cheating, plagiarism, or dishonesty or collusion in another's dishonesty is a fundamental violation of these norms.
CHEATING is the use or attempted use of unauthorized aids in any exam or other academic exercise submitted for evaluation. This includes data falsification; the fabrication of data; deceitful alteration of collected data included in a report; copying from another student's work; unauthorized cooperation in doing assignments or during an examination; the use of purchased essays, term papers, or preparatory research for such papers; submission of the same written work in more than one course without prior written approval from the instructor(s) involved; and dishonesty in requests for either extensions or papers or make-up examinations.
PLAGIARISM is the deliberate act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrative material, or statements of someone else, without full and proper acknowledgment, and presenting them as one's own.
COLLUSION is assisting or attempting to assist another student in an act of academic dishonesty.
As part of your scholarly development, you must learn how to work cooperatively in a community of scholars and fruitfully utilize the work of others without violating the norms of intellectual honesty. You have a responsibility to learn the parameters of collaboration and the proper forms for quoting, summarizing and paraphrasing.
Faculty members who detect any form of academic dishonesty have the responsibility to take appropriate action. The faculty member also has the responsibility to report the incident and penalty to the Department Chairperson and the appropriate Class Dean. The report will remain in your student file until you graduate.
If the gravity of the offense seems to warrant it or if the faculty member prefers that another academic authority decide the matter, he or she may refer the case to a Dean. In addition, if the student is unwilling to accept the faculty member's decision, he or she may choose to have the matter adjudicated either by an Associate Dean or by an Administrative Board. The section of the College of Arts and Sciences in the Boston College Undergraduate Catalogue has further details about this process.
Academic integrity is a very important matter. If you have any questions in any of your courses about what is allowed or not allowed, please discuss the matter immediately with the instructor.
