Professors in the Faculty of Science expect the work a student submits to be their own work, and to properly cite sources of ideas and information. It is never okay to “construct” a report or other written assignment by piecing it together with sentences copied (and perhaps slightly modified) from online sources, for example.

While we encourage students to study together and help each other it is never okay when “helping” someone to simply hand over your work to that person. This is also true if you did a course in a previous year and you are “helping” a student currently taking that course. In fact, if you sell your previous course materials (your assignments and lab reports for example) and the person who buys the material copies it, you open yourself to possible academic honesty charges.

The Academic Integrity Tutorial is designed to help you learn about issues of academic integrity. It explores plagiarism and related matters with case examples and positive strategies you can use to improve your academic efforts and avoid committing an academic offence as outlined in the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty.  The tutorial includes a self-test allowing you to gauge how well you understand issues related to academic integrity.

The Office of the Associate Dean, Students provides advice to students facing academic honesty proceedings. Simply make an appointment through the Office of the Dean in person (355 Lumbers) or via phone at 416-736-5051.