Undergraduate Catalog 2025-2026

Contents
Catalog Links
Share

Academic Integrity Policy

In accordance with the mission statement at Piedmont University, it is the responsibility of each member of the Piedmont community to promote an atmosphere of academic integrity and an understanding of intellectual honesty that adheres to the highest standards of professional and personal conduct.

To protect intellectual and scholarly integrity, the University imposes strict penalties for academic dishonesty, which is defined as follows.

  • Cheating — using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information or study aids in any academic exercise.

  • Deception – providing false information to an instructor or other academic administrator about an academic matter in order to achieve an unmerited advantage.

  • Facilitating academic dishonesty — helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.

  • Plagiarism — representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise.

  • Fabrication — unauthorized invention or falsification of any information or citation in an academic exercise or altering official university records or documents.
  • Collusion – working in collaboration with others on an assignment intended to represent a single student’s work; or, improving or editing another’s completed work to the extent that the nature and quality of the original work is significantly altered.
  • Course activities designated as quizzes, tests and exams are always to be completed by a student individually and without assistance from other people or resources UNLESS permission for collaboration or the use of external resources is explicitly permitted by the course professor(s).  Hence all quizzes, tests and exams are to be considered closed-book/closed-notes and closed-internet (e.g., Google searches).  Artificial intelligence apps are also banned on quizzes, tests and exams unless explicitly permitted by the course professor(s). 

Examples of Collusion

Collusion occurs when work presented as a students' individual work has been developed with the assistance of others. Absent specific authorization from the course instructor, each academic exercise or assignment is presumed to be prepared and submitted by one student acting individually and not together with others.

This doesn't mean that students can't study in groups and learn from one another, nor does it mean that students cannot ask for advice about how to accomplish an assignment from Academic Support or the Library. However, the result that is the required/graded submission must represent the student's individual thought and effort, unless the assignment was to produce a group's collaborative work.

 

Collusion

Cooperation

Planning a response together; copying a plan for an individual assessment.

Analyzing the assessment question together.

Paraphrasing someone else's assignment and submitting it as your own.

Practicing paraphrasing skills together and sharing tips.

Relying on some group members to do all the work.

Sharing work evenly among group members.

Getting someone else to do your assessment task.

Getting help from an academic support tutor.

Remember, you are guilty of collusion when you are copying someone else's work or letting someone else copy your work.

 

Collusion occurs when you work without the authorization of your instructor to:

  • work with one or more people to prepare and produce work;
  • allow others to copy your work or share your answer to an assessment task;
  • allow someone else to write or edit your work (an exception is receiving assistance from academic support or student success);
  • write or edit work for another student;
  • offer to complete work or seek payment for completing academic work for other students.

Examples of Deception

  • Giving a false excuse for missing a project deadline;
  • Claiming to have submitted coursework that one did not actually submit;
  • Taking an exam or submitting coursework on behalf of someone else, especially when using their personally identifying credentials to do so;
  • Forging an advisor's or instructor's signature on an academic form.

Academic Integrity - Student Violations Policy

  1. An instructor who suspects that a student has committed a violation of the Piedmont University Academic Integrity Policy shall contact the student involved via e-mail within five business days of the instructor’s knowledge of the alleged violation. 
  2. The instructor and student will schedule a review of the facts and circumstances of the suspected violation whenever feasible. A student who does not reply to the instructor’s message regarding the alleged infraction within five business days may forfeit their opportunity to respond to the allegation before the instructor takes formal action. 
  3. After the review, if the instructor determines that there was no violation of the Academic Integrity Policy — or wishes to address a minor or first-time infraction internally, without a formal charge of academic dishonesty — no further action is necessary. 
  4. An instructor who concludes that there has been an incident of academic dishonesty and wishes to report it shall complete and submit an Academic Dishonesty Report Form in Starfish. 
  5. The instructor making the complaint will provide the Dean of the college where the course resides, or their designee, with a statement fully describing the alleged act of dishonesty, naming persons involved and witnesses, and listing all physical evidence. All physical evidence is to be secured, if possible, by the Dean or designee. 
  6. The instructor will then collaborate with the Dean to determine an appropriate sanction for the offense. 

Sanctions

Sanctions for a violation of the Academic Integrity Policy will be based on the severity of the infractions and the student’s prior history of academic dishonesty and may include a lowered grade, an F on the specific assessment (quiz, test, project, etc.), an F in the course, or some other reasonable consequence. If a student enrolled in a graduate program earns a final grade of F in the course, the student will be excluded from the graduate program. Students who repeatedly violate the Academic Integrity Policy may be recommended by a Dean to the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) for academic exclusion and dismissal from the University. In such event, the Dean would provide the student with written notification of the VPAA’s decision within ten business days of the student’s meeting with the instructor. 

Withdrawal from a course may not supersede any disciplinary measures imposed by the Dean or designee.

Appeals Process

The student may appeal the sanction to the Academic Integrity Subcommittee of the Faculty Senate. This appeal must be submitted in writing to the office of the VPAA (vpaa@piedmont.edu) within five business days of the notification of the sanction. As part of this appeal, the Academic Integrity Subcommittee will consider any new facts or extenuating circumstances that were not brought to light in the initial review. A new review will be conducted within ten business days of submission of the appeal. 

The student may then appeal the decision of the Academic Integrity Subcommittee to the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA). This appeal must be submitted in writing to the office of the VPAA (vpaa@piedmont.edu) within five business days of the appeal decision from the Academic Integrity Subcommittee. Such an appeal would focus only on procedural due process issues and will be conducted within ten business days of submission of the appeal. 

All academic integrity questions must be resolved prior to a student graduating.

Up one level

In this section