Academic Integrity Policy

The Elaine Marieb College of Nursing follows the University of Massachusetts Amherst Academic Honesty Policy as written in the Undergraduate Academic Regulations.

UMass Amherst is strongly committed to academic integrity, which is defined as completing all academic work without cheating, lying, stealing, or receiving unauthorized assistance from any other person, or using any source of information not appropriately authorized or attributed. The UMass community is centered, among other things, on teaching and learning, a complex process in which many stakeholders, including students, instructors (tenure-stream, lecturer, and adjunct professors as well as graduate student TAs and TOs), administrators, and relevant staff, are a part. As a community, we hold each other accountable and support each other’s knowledge and understanding of academic integrity. The following policy defines the responsibilities towards our collective goal.

Academic integrity asks the community to work together. Scholarship depends upon the reliability of information and reference of the work of others. No form of cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, or facilitating of dishonesty, via analogue or digital methods, will be condoned in the University community. Instructors are to be clear about the expectations in their course(s)/assignment(s) of how work should be completed; students are to demonstrate their own learning during examinations and other academic exercises and appropriately credit other sources of information or knowledge. Instructors may analyze student work, electronically or by other means, for originality of content. Instructors may include student work in databases for the purpose of checking for possible plagiarized content.

UMass Amherst holds academic integrity in the highest regard and as a foundation of our institution. Therefore, the community of students, instructors, and staff are expected to uphold academic integrity. Upon matriculation to UMass Amherst, all students received and acknowledged a commitment to academic integrity (Appendix A: Commitment to Academic Integrity). Because students are an integral part of the UMass community, they share responsibility for participating in, and upholding, academic integrity.

Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to:

• Cheating: Intentional or attempted use of trickery, artifice, deception, breach of confidence, fraud, or misrepresentation of one's academic work as well as intentional or attempted use of unauthorized materials, including generative AI tools, assistance, collaboration, information, or study aids in any academic exercise (unless explicitly permitted by instructor).
• Fabrication: Falsification and/or invention of any information or citation in any academic exercise.
• Plagiarism: Knowingly representing the words, ideas, art, and/or creative works of another, including generative AI tools, as one's own work in any academic exercise. This includes submitting without citation, in whole or in part, prewritten term papers, research, art, or other creative works by others, including but not limited to commercial vendors who sell or distribute such materials.
• Lying: Knowingly providing false information, submitting false documents, or misleading anyone in connection with any academic matter.
• Facilitating dishonesty: Knowingly helping or attempting to help another commit an academic integrity infraction, including distributing course materials without permission, manipulating digital technologies with unauthorized course information, substituting for another in an examination, or allowing others to represent as their own one's papers, reports, or academic works.

The above definitions are guidelines and are the foundation for the initiation of either the informal or formal academic integrity process. While there may be cases of genuine misunderstanding, if there is a misunderstanding so egregious that common sense would indicate a different course of action, instructors may choose to pursue academic sanctions within the academic integrity process.

Sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed or facilitated an academic integrity infraction. In instances where student-staff (for example, student tutors) suspect an academic integrity infraction, they should report their concerns to their supervisor, who should follow up with any needed communication. For this policy, TOs are responsible for administering the academic integrity policy in their classes. Graduate TAs are responsible for reporting to the instructor of record any suspicions of academic dishonesty. Graduate TOs who oversee their own classes should communicate their suspicions to their course director, faculty advisor, and/or department chair for support during the process. 

Upholding academic integrity is centralized in the Academic Integrity Office, which is part of Academic Affairs, and reports to the Provost’s office. All reported cases of academic integrity infractions will go through and be held by the Academic Integrity Office.

Please see the Academic Integrity Procedures and the Appendices for detailed information and support on proceeding with academic integrity action.

FA 02/19; 9/21/22; 5/17/23; 4/2/25; 9/25.