Academic Integrity

The Faculty and staff of Front Range Community College treat all violations of academic integrity seriously.  Faculty, departments, and deans act in partnership to develop appropriate responses to incidents of academic dishonesty.  The purpose of the partnership is to serve the best interests of students enrolled at the college.

Violations of Academic Integrity include but are not limited to: plagiarism, misuse of academic materials, and cheating. Cheating includes intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any forms of work submitted for credit or hours; multiple submissions of the same assignment to different classes without prior authorization; altering or interfering with grading; lying to improve a grade; altering graded work; unauthorized removal of tests from classroom or office; forging signatures on academic documents; intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise; intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to violate a provision of the institutional code of academic integrity.

Plagiarism is the adoption or reproduction of ideas or words or statements of another person as one's own without acknowledgment.  When a student submits work that purports to be his or her original work, but actually is not, the student has committed plagiarism.  Plagiarism includes the following: copying of one person's work by another and claiming it as his or her own, false presentation of one's self as the author or creator of a work, falsely taking credit for another person's unique method of treatment or expression, falsely representing one's self as the source of ideas or expression, or the presentation of someone else's language, ideas or works without giving that person due credit.

The misuse of academic materials includes, but is not limited to, the following: stealing or destroying library or reference materials or computer programs; stealing or destroying another student's notes or materials, or having such materials in one's possession without the owner's permission; receiving assistance in locating or using sources of information in an assignment when such assistance has been forbidden by the instructor; illegitimate possession, disposition, or use of examinations or answer keys to examinations; unauthorized alteration, forgery, or falsification of academic records; unauthorized sale or purchase of examinations, papers, or assignments.

If the member of the faculty suspects or has accused a student of academic dishonesty (according to but not limited by the definitions above), he or she will make a copy of the test/quiz/assignment at issue, return the copy to the student if appropriate, keep the original, inform the chair of the department and submit the appropriate documentation to the Dean of Student Services.  Individual members of the faculty will determine the appropriate academic consequence in the class, which may extend from a warning up to and including failure of the course.  Individual departments may establish by agreement rules requiring specific academic sanctions.

The Dean of Student Services may determine appropriate institutional consequences up to and including dismissal from the college, following the processes and sanctions outlined in the college's disciplinary procedures.  Students have a right to appeal grades and disciplinary sanctions based on the college's appeals policies.