How do I report a potential violation?

Beginning in September 2011, all faculty are asked to report potential violations using our new online reporting form. The Public Incident Report Form is available at: https://denison-advocate.symplicity.com/public_report/ The form will first ask you to identify yourself and the type of incident you are reporting. Please select “Faculty Member Reporting an Academic Violation.” You will be asked to provide information about the course, the incident, and the student(s) involved, and you will be able to upload documents pertaining to the case.

Which documents should I include in the online report?

Incident Description (You have the option of uploading an incident to the reporting form or typing it into the “Description of Incident” box on the reporting form.)

• Student Assignment
• Assignment Description
• Course Syllabus
• If relevant: Copies of sources that were not cited properly or were unauthorized. Please clearly indicate which portions of the source were used or copied (see questions below).
• Other relevant documents (i.e., emails from the student regarding the case)

What do I do with the documents related to the case?

In an effort to be more environmentally friendly and to keep more consistent electronic records of each case, we ask that all case documents are uploaded electronically through our online public reporting form (in the “Attach documents/Upload” section).

I have an electronic version of the student’s assignment. How do I upload it?

It’s most helpful for the Board if you can identify the portion(s) of the assignment that will be most important for the Board to look at (i.e., the plagiarized sentences, the problems that were copied from another source or student, etc.). To identify these portions electronically and make them stand out for Board members, please do one of the following:

• Use the highlighter function (Located under the “Home” tab in Microsoft Word, next to the text color button)
• Use the review function (Under the “Review” tab in Microsoft Word, you can select relevant portions of the text, then click “New Comment” to type a comment about it)
• Bold or underline passages

I only have a paper copy of the student’s assignment. How do I upload it?

Please use underlining (in pen) or a highlighter to identify relevant portions of the assignment for the Board, and please scan the document. If you highlight a document, you have the option of scanning the documents in color on most campus copiers. Once you have scanned and saved the documents electronically, you can them upload the files in the “Attach Documents/Upload” section of the online reporting form.

What information should I include in the incident descriptions?

Because faculty members are not present at academic integrity hearings, it’s important that the Board receives a complete description of the incident. Please provide as much information as possible about the reported incident. Kim Coplin shares these descriptions (and other documents you include) with accused students prior to their hearing, and the Board uses them in their deliberations regarding the case.

• When did you discover the incident?
• What does the incident involve? (Two identical lab reports? A paper with sentences copied from the Internet without proper attribution? A homework assignment with answers taken from the solution manual?)
• Who does the incident involve?
• In which course did the incident take place? If the case involves multiple students, please indicate whether the students were in the same section of the course.
• Did you meet with the student to discuss the incident prior to reporting it? If so, what did the conversation entail? Who was present at this discussion?
• What documents have you included with your statement?
• If you are noting similarities between students’ assignments or between an assignment and an unauthorized source, please explain how likely it is that these similarities would be due to chance. How likely is it, for example, that two students would’ve made the exact same error in a math equation? Sometimes it’s helpful to indicate whether other students in the class made similar mistakes or used similar language.