Basic Provisions

Article 1

Academic integrity is an ethical code, whereby the student guarantees that all work submitted is the student’s own work.

Academic honesty is a key to teaching and learning and is essential for the students’ academic integrity and teacher’s professional ethics. 

Plagiarism is the use of ideas, sentences and standpoints of other authors, unknowingly or intentionally, in your own work, without adequate reference to the title of the work or the name of the author.

Collusion is the unauthorised collaboration on assessable work (written, oral or practical) with other people or letting other people submit your work as their own. 

Fabrication is making things up or lying: intentionally making up data, information, documents, research, or forging signatures.

Academic misconduct is a behaviour that might result in gaining unfair advantage in the assessment, which includes, but is not limited to: possession of unauthorised items during assessment or examination, submitting plagiarised or duplicated work, collusion, fabrication of data etc.

 

Article 2

Cheating may involve:

• giving unauthorized assistance to another student;
• receiving unauthorized assistance from another student or an adult (such as a tutor or family member) without acknowledging their assistance;
• giving or receiving unauthorized materials during an assessment;
• copying parts of or an entire assignment or assessment; and
• use of internet translators as a substitute for a student’s own work in language study.

Other actions of academic dishonesty not listed above, as determined by a teacher and administrator.

Article 3

To maintain academic honesty, students are forbidden to:

• submit work of any kind that is not their own work;
• plagiarise in any work (written, multimedia, oral, creative, etc.);
• post assessments, assignments, answers to assessments or assignments, or any other curricular materials on any media that can be seen by other students or other third parties;
• possess and/or use any unauthorised items during assessment or examination;
• give or receive unauthorized assistance on assessments;
• present the same work for different subjects or examination components;
• present any forged documents to their teacher.

In order to help students maintain academic honesty, mentors, tutors, parents or other third parties must not give assistance on assessments or during an assessed coursework. 

Allison Academy strives to raise ethical students, who  behave in compliance with moral principles. By presenting students’ and employees’ responsibilities and the consequences of their actions, we empower our students to be trustworthy, fair, honest, and respectful towards others, as well as towards themselves. 

The responsibilities of the School and teachers

Article 2

Teachers have a key role in helping students understand the fundamentals of academic honesty. The teachers of Allison Academy will:

• Present the concept of plagiarism, collusion and academic misconduct to students;
• Provide guidance on the correct paraphrasing, citing and referencing;
• Refer to school administration if they suspect on any form of academic misconduct;
• Use plagiarism scanners when assessing students’ work;
• Conduct activities in compliance with the academic honesty guidelines and familiarise the students with them;
• Be a role model of academic honesty.

In order to establish students’ responsibility and academic integrity, teachers are allowed to: 

• Ask students to sign a declaration of authenticity;
• Ask students to provide notes, work that was referenced or any piece of evidence that might indicate the authenticity of the student’s work.

The responsibilities of the students

Article 3

Students are responsible for maintaining academic integrity and honesty. The students will:

• Read and acknowledge the Academic Honesty Policy;
• Report other students’ academic dishonesty to the teachers or the school administration;
• Maintain true and honest about their work and learning;
• Avoid plagiarism, collusion or any other form of academic misconduct;
• Properly cite, reference, paraphrase or quote other authors’ work using MLA referencing style;
• Avoid giving or receiving unauthorized assistance in completing their work;
• Be responsible towards other people’s work; 
• Act in compliance with the supervisor’s instructions during exams. 

Students are not allowed to:

• Copy, transcribe or otherwise use the works and/or parts of other students’ works in their assignments;
• Present, copy and distribute school teaching materials to third parties;
• Present, copy and share school assignments with third parties;
• Copy and share homework, project or assignments with third parties;
• Use other people’s copyrighted works without approval or without adequate reference to the title of the work and the name of the author.

Students have the right to:

• Receive feedback on the quality of work and guidelines for improvement, unless it is an examination component;
• Request an extension of the deadline required for the preparation of a homework or project assignment if they are justifiably prevented.

Responsibilities of the parents and legal guardians 

Article 4

Parents and legal guardians play an important role in the students’ learning process. 

Parents / guardians are expected to:

• Monitor the preparation of schoolwork, homework, exam and project assignments through an electronic diary, platform and e-mail notifications on a weekly basis;
• Encourage the development of the abovementioned assignments;
• Help organize the time needed to complete homework, exams and project assignments;
• Support the school in the realization of the principles of work which imply that all homework and project assignments are in the allotted time;
• Avoid helping students in completion of their assignments;
• Get in touch with the subject teacher, if there are justified reasons for extending the deadline required for the preparation of homework, exam or project assignment;
• Encourage the request for additional help from the subject teacher if there is a need for it.

Consequences of the academic dishonesty

Article 5

The purpose of maintaining academic honesty is to teach students how to be responsible, trustworthy and honest. The purpose of implementing adequate measures for academic dishonesty is not a punishment, but a pedagogical measure that should help students become active learners and responsible people. 

If a teacher suspects any form of academic misconduct, a student is held responsible and should provide evidence to support the authenticity of his/her work. 

If academic dishonesty is determined after careful analysis of the student’s work and the provided evidence, the teacher has the right to refuse accepting the student’s work and give the student a grade of zero. Exam assignments or components that contain elements of plagiarism will not be taken into consideration, which may result in the student failing the exam and/or possibly the course. In this case, parents and/or legal guardians will be informed and the School’s Code of Conduct will apply. 

Article 6

Consequences of the academic misconduct:

• The student will have a conference with the administrator and teacher to discuss their poor choices. The primary purpose of the conference is to understand the importance of integrity, how to properly value the intellectual property of others, and understand the consequences of their actions. The conference will also serve as a warning. Parents will be notified.
• The student will be required to complete another assignment under supervised conditions within a new timeline set by the teacher.
• All extracurricular involvement may be suspended until the assignment is completed.
• A note with details of the incident will be placed in the student’s official file. This will allow the school to track repeated offenses.

Article 7

If a student commits academic dishonesty for a second time further disciplinary consequences will be applied, and can include:

• Further conference with the parents and the Principal.
• A Behavior Plan may be collaboratively developed.
• A note will be placed in the student’s official file. This forms part of a student’s official record.
• The student may serve an internal or external suspension.
• For repeated offenses, a Behavior Contract will be put in place.

Final Provisions

Article 8

Link Group North America, LLC reserves the right to modify, amend, delete, or add to this handbook at any time as it deems necessary.