At Queen's, you may encounter allegations of plagiarism, use of unauthorized materials, facilitating academic dishonesty, submitting counterfeit documents, or falsification. The following are guidelines and things you should note when encountering such a case.
Know Your Rights
- As a Queen's student, you have the right:
- to know allegations and the basis for them
- to respond to allegations
- to be heard by an unbiased decision-maker
- to a timely process
- to a clear decision
- to an appeal (based on the grounds provided by the Academic Integrity Procedures - Section 4.1)
General Process
Step-by-step guide (Word 132 KB) in responding to allegations of academic integrity departure
- If an instructor has evidence for academic dishonesty on your part, they will notify you in writing of their allegations against you.
- Afterwards, you and your instructor will have a chance to meet to discuss the allegations. In the case of severe offences, you may be asked to meet directly with the Faculty/School. You can also choose to send in a written response to the allegation. If you do neither, the case will go on without your input and may be less favourable on your part.
- If it is decided that there was a departure from academic integrity, the instructor will notify the Faculty/School of the outcome. If you have had a previous departure, the sanctioning process will be handed to the Faculty/School. If no previous departure exists, the instructor will proceed with a sanction and notify you in writing.
- If it was decided that there has been no departure from academic integrity, then all documents will be destroyed and there will be nothing on your record.
- An appeal can be made to the Faculty/School representative for decision by an instructor or to the University Student Appeal Board (USAB) for decision by the Faculty/School.
Sanctions
There are a number of sanctions that may be issued if a departure from AI has been found. From least to most serious:
- Oral or written warning
- Completion of an educational workshop or program
- Submission of a new or revised piece of work
- Partial or total loss of marks on a piece of work
- Partial or total loss of grades in the course
- Withdraw from the university for a specified period of time
- Rescinding of a degree
- Making notations on the transcripts
Note: In a case where the sanction assigned means that you would fail the course, you may not drop the course, regardless of add/drop deadlines.
Office of the University Ombudsperson
The Office of the University Ombudsperson has additional resources for students and faculty on academic integrity matters. You can access those resources by navigating to the Academic Integrity tab on their website.
Appeals
You can appeal the decision, the sanction and remedy, or both of them. The appeal process to follow is listed on one of the resources developed by the University Ombudsperson Office (Appealing an Academic Integrity Decision). These are the people involved in the appeal process at each faculty and school.