Overview

With emerging technologies and new student engagement modalities in higher education, a renewed focus on Academic Integrity is needed. Global Christian University expects all staff, students, faculty, contractors, and administrators to submit work with academic integrity. TurnItIn describes academic integrity as  “A commitment to honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage.”

Academic integrity is not only a definition, but a set of values to uphold. The components of academic integrity are enacted in the following ways:

• Honesty: be truthful, give credit, and provide facts
• Trust: provide transparency, trust others, and give credence
• Fairness: apply rules consistently, engage with others equitably, and take responsibility for our own actions
• Respect: receive feedback willingly, accept others’ thoughts, and recognize the impacts of our own words and actions on others
• Responsibility: follow institutional rules and conduct codes, engage in difficult conversations, and model good behavior
• Courage: take a stand to address wrongdoing, be undaunted in defending integrity, and endure discomfort for something you believe in (ICAI, 2020).

One of the chief ways academic integrity is breached is through the submission of unoriginal work. Global Christian desires to pursue the Spirit and the Word as an institution, and breaches of academic integrity by faculty, staff, or students interrupt this pursuit. 

• As pursuers of the Word, led by the Holy Spirit, faculty and students detach themselves in their investigations of Scripture when unoriginal or generated texts are submitted instead of original works. The leading of the Holy Spirit is dismissed, contemplation with the Bible and the study materials are bypassed, and the deep, transformative work that God desires to have upon hearts is short-circuited.
• Students specifically must ‘earn’ their degrees through the work of study, synthesizing ideas, and producing the work assignments as required by each course. Using the work of others (whether by plagiarism, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), or by other means) cheats this degree-earning process in whole or in part and is lying. Instead, Global Christian seeks to partner with the Spirit of Truth in every endeavor. (John 16:13).

The hope of Global Christian University is that we are known as faithful stewards of God’s Word, deep partners with the Holy Spirit, and stewards of academic integrity.

Plagiarism and Other Unoriginal Works 

Plagiarism and the submission of unoriginal works can be seen on a spectrum, which includes the use of artificial intelligence, purchasing pre-written papers, contracting others to write an original paper that the student represents as their own, and copying, verbatim or in spirit, the work of others without proper attribution. The following are more specific iterations of this category:

• Student Collusion – Working with other students on an assignment meant for individual assessment.
• Inadvertent Plagiarism – Forgetting to properly cite or quote a source or unintentional paraphrasing.
• Word for Word plagiarism – Copying and pasting content without proper attribution.
• Paraphrase plagiarism – Rephrasing a source’s ideas without proper attribution.
• Self-Plagiarism – Reusing work that was previously published or submitted for another course without proper attribution and/or permission from the instructor.
• Mosaic Plagiarism – Weaving phrases and text from several sources into one’s own work. Adjusting sentences without quotation marks or attribution.
• Source-based Plagiarism – Providing inaccurate or incomplete information about sources such that they cannot be found and/or verified.
• Software-based Text Modification – Taking content written by another and running it through a software tool (text spinner, translation engine) to evade plagiarism detection.
• Manual Text Modification – Manipulating text with the intention of misleading plagiarism detection software.
• Contract Cheating – engaging a third party (for free, for pay, or in-kind) to complete an assignment and representing that as one’s own work.
• Data Plagiarism – Falsifying or fabricating data or improperly appropriating someone else’s work, putting a researcher, institution, or publisher’s reputation in jeopardy.

The following instances are further examples of academic dishonesty:

• copying the answers of another student on a test or quiz,
• using course materials during a test or quiz in which they should not be used,
• unauthorized collaboration on tests, papers, or other assignments,
• securing test questions from a student who took the course previously,
• providing false statements regarding the amount of material read during the semester,
• translating work(s) from another language without proper attribution,
• not citing or sourcing quotes, or summarizing another’s content without attribution,
• impersonating another person in a test or assignment, and
• the use of AI in creating a project, starting a submission, or in any way composing or rewriting a response to an assignment.

What is not a violation of Academic Integrity:

• The use of Grammarly.com or other such spellchecking and grammatical checking/improvement tools.
• The use of paid editors (for longer graduate or doctoral submissions) in which they only line edit (fix grammar, punctuation, and clarity), but do not perform any content editing. Such editors may point out content issues and confusing structure, but they will not make such content edits. Prior approval from faculty must be sought for students to employ paid editors to work on papers.

Staff, faculty, and students may inquire about what the acceptable level of similarity is. The answer depends on a variety of factors and will be resolved on a case-by-case basis. The faculty, staff, and board of trustees will use the following rubric as guidance.

Response & Remedies for Violations

If an instructor, faculty member, student, or administrator feels a submitted work includes a violation of this policy, they are to escalate to their department head or the dean of their college immediately, with supporting documentation. The department head or dean will document the referral and determine whether an infraction has occurred and what remedy is the appropriate response.

Remedy responses will vary depending on the type of infraction; 

• Minor (missed citation, non-attributed summations, using quotes w/o reference, and other small unintentional plagiarism, lacking candor/honesty in self-reporting assignments) 
• Substantial (use of generative AI in submission, repeated occurrence of unintentional plagiarism, passing others’ work as one’s own, cheating or collaboration on exams, repeatedly lacking candor/honesty in self-reporting assignments)
• Complete (passing another person’s assignment as one’s own, using generative AI to produce entire assignments, and repeated cheating or collaboration on exams).

Remedies may include:

• Explanation and resubmission of assignments with citations added, and quotes attributed.
• Interviewing and quizzing students on book reports and course content.
• If the explanation is understandable (honest mistakes), resubmission may be done with or without a grade reduction.
• Repeated issues must have a grade reduction, or at the discretion of the dean reviewing the infraction(s), a “0” grade may be assigned for the assignment instead of allowing a resubmission.
• Repeated Substantial or Complete Violations may result in the failure of the class or expulsion from the institution. 

In all cases, all conduct determined to be an infraction will be formally documented by the college dean and attached to the student’s file.

Work resubmission schedules will be determined on a case-by-case basis. For shorter assignments, 1 week will be the usual rework timeframe, but for substantial issues, a longer timeframe may be appropriate.

Upon notifying the student of the violation findings and remedies, the student may appeal to the Appeals Committee (or the Board/Committee handling student affairs). This appeal must be done in writing within 48 hours of receiving the notice. The board must review, investigate, and call witnesses within 7 working days and come to a conclusion on the matter. The Committee’s determination will be final.

Student’s Role in Forwarding Academic Integrity

Understanding plagiarism is part of the requirements for earning a degree at Global Christian. Navigating the coursework of all enrolled classes without plagiarizing is the fulfillment of this requirement. While Global Christian understands that many of the situations we qualify as plagiarism are acceptable or encouraged practices in many workplaces, the academic environment requires that original work be performed, and the spiritual growth in the mission of Global Christian requires that this work be personal. For these reasons, all plagiarism and related activities are prohibited. 

One particular concern is that requiring original and personal work may be seen as a waste of time. However, part of the requirements of every class at Global Christian is the hours spent in class and outside of class to learn the material and to do the work to synthesize and produce an analysis of the material. If a student’s schedule is too crunched to have time for this work, then the correct response is to discuss the situation with the professors and/or advisors, not to take shortcuts. 

If a student is turning toward academic dishonesty as a result of being lost in the class or the program, they should seek other Global Christian resources: like their professor, the librarian, and their advisor. 

Faculty’s Role in Forwarding Academic Integrity

Global Christian University’s staff, instructors, and faculty must also uphold the values of academic integrity and help prevent plagiarism and unoriginal work by:

• Knowing and following the Academic Policies found in the Faculty Handbook and Policies Handbook.
• Understanding how AI checkers, plagiarism checkers, and other detection tools work in the flow of course assignment grading.
• Following clear course design guidelines and clearly defining course assignments so students know if/when collaboration is allowed, which textbooks or tools are allowed for tests (open book or not), and defining the rubrics for grading.

The use of boilerplate, governmentally sourced, or other typical language in documents and policies is allowed as long as all such texts are properly sourced/cited and permission has been granted where needed. Generative AI may also be suitable for certain policy formation tasks but would be inappropriate for letters of recommendation and student/staff evaluations. All such use should be disclosed upon submission to the document approval board, supervisor, or manager. Use of generative AI tools is not allowed for staff/academic research or for the written work used in the pursuit of, or continuation of professional development.

* The inspiration and high-level outline were based in part on TurnItIn’s Academic Integrity policies and the policies of Family of Faith University and Global Awakening Theological Seminary.