Introduction

The purpose of this document is to describe academic honesty as it relates to the Vernon learning community, to define breaches of academic honesty, and to outline the school's response when academic dishonesty happens.

At Vernon School, learners strive to embody the characteristics described in the IB Learner Profile. Because of this, the school has built it's academic honesty policy around those attributes.  In particular, we encourage our students to be:

Principled – by acting with honesty, integrity and responsibility.

Inquirers – by asking questions and developing the skills needed to conduct research.

Communicators – by writing and speaking to inform others and crediting their sources properly.

We believe that all students should:

Be honest in their school work.

Not cheat.

Not allow others to copy their work.

Use a method to cite or give credit when they use ideas and words that are not their own.

We believe that all teachers should:

Model academic honesty.

Provide clear guidelines and expectations for student work.

Teach and scaffold correct use of citations and how to credit others' for their ideas.

Treat minor breaches of the academic honesty policy as “teachable moments” to support student ethical development.

Definitions of terms used when discussing academic honesty:

Academic honesty:

Behaving and working honestly in researching and presenting schoolwork, including presentations, papers and tests. (IBO 2003 and 2009).

Plagiarism:

Presenting someone else's work as one's own. This includes using someone else's work without including a citation. (IBO 2003 and 2009).

Cheating:

A variety of behaviors are used to gain an unfair academic advantage. Including:

• Falsifying records (changing a score).
• Use of electronics to get answers.
• Using notes in a test without permission.
• Having someone else do your work for you – including friends, family and tutors.

Intellectual property:

Includes patents, registered designs, trademarks, moral rights and copyright. The law protects many forms of intellectual and creative expression (IBO 2003:2).