Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. It can include

• Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community, or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment. Consciously copying or closely replicating anyone’s work counts as plagiarism.
• Fabrication: The falsification of data, information, or citations in any formal academic exercise.
• Deception: Providing false information to an instructor concerning a formal academic exercise, such as giving a false excuse for missing a deadline or falsely claiming to have submitted work.
• Cheating: Any attempt to obtain assistance in a formal academic exercise (like an examination) without due acknowledgment.
• Bribery: Exchanging assignment answers or test answers for money.
• Sabotage: Acting to prevent others from completing their work. This includes cutting pages out of library books or willfully disrupting the experiments of others.
• Professorial misconduct: Professorial acts that are academically fraudulent equate to academic fraud and/or grade fraud.
• Impersonation: assuming a student’s identity with the intent to provide an advantage for the student.

All of these offenses have serious consequences. If you are found guilty of any of them, you may receive failing grades for a class, lose eligibility for financial assistance like scholarships, or even face suspension. Why does the university take these so seriously? The whole point of a college education is to learn new concepts and skills. Academic misconduct disrupts and devalues the learning process for everyone involved.