Academic Integrity
The ELPS Department expects all credential, Masters, and doctoral candidates, and other students in ELPS classes, to adhere to the accepted norms of intellectual honesty in their academic work. Any form of cheating, plagiarism, dishonesty, or collusion in another individual's dishonesty is a fundamental violation of these norms and will face consequences. Cheating is the use or attempted use of unauthorized aids in any exam or other academic exercise submitted for evaluation. All written work should be done independently by the individual student unless otherwise authorized by the instructor. Cheating includes:
- copying from another person's work or having them do work for you
- unauthorized cooperation in doing assignments or during an examination
- use of purchased or otherwise ready-made essays, term papers, or preparatory research for such papers
- submission of the same written work in more than one course without prior written approval from the instructor(s) involved
- dishonesty in requests for extensions on papers or make-up examinations
- data falsification or fabrication
- deceitful alteration of collected data included in a report
Plagiarism is the deliberate act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrative material, or statements of someone else, without full and proper acknowledgment, and presenting them as one's own. This includes appropriating material from print or electronic sources in part or in whole without proper permission, citation, and indication within quotation marks of material that is quoted verbatim. You must use quotation marks when you are using the exact wording that appears in an author’s text. You must cite the source (Author, date) not only when you quote an author directly (in which case you also need the page number) but when you incorporate their opinions or interpretations in your work, or when you paraphrase their main ideas in your own words. Collusion is assisting or attempting to assist another candidate in an act of academic dishonesty.
Candidates in ELPS programs are expected to know how to work cooperatively and effectively utilize source material without violating the norms of intellectual honesty. Candidates have a responsibility to know the proper forms for quoting, attributing, summarizing, and paraphrasing. If candidates have any questions or doubts about academic integrity matters, they should consult their advisor.
Violations of academic integrity may be grounds for failing an assignment, failing a course, or being suspended from or dismissed from the program, depending on the severity of the offense (see Section 41301, Title 5, California Code of regulations).
Candidates’ ignorance of academic integrity standards will not release them from these consequences. Faculty members who detect any form of academic dishonesty have the responsibility to take appropriate action in accordance with existing CSUN Academic Policy guidelines and ELPS Department Student Retention Policies. Such reports will remain in candidates' files.
ELPS Department Statement on Submission of the Same Written Work in More than One Course in the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership Program
The ELPS Department Policy on Academic Integrity (above) prohibits "submission of the same written work in more than one course without prior written approval from the instructor(s) involved." Following the CSUN Policy on Academic Dishonesty, the ELPS Department interprets "the same written work" to mean the same assignment or a substantial portion of an entire assignment submitted from a prior course in a subsequent course.
In advanced academic study at the doctoral level, understanding what can and cannot be used from prior class assignments without instructor approval can be challenging. It's challenging because assignments in multiple classes tend to be related and/or build upon work in other classes. Specifically, when assignments from one class build on assignments in another class, the question about what can be used and not used and when to seek instructor approval needs to be clarified. In most cases, the use of a portion of the written work in assignments from prior classes is expected in subsequent courses where there is a direct connection to the dissertation. Given the curricular integration of the dissertation in the program, assignments in multiple courses tend to be related and material from one assignment to the next may scaffold one to the other. In these courses, the focus is on building a skillset and developing the research framework for the dissertation, including the first three chapters of the dissertation. Examples of courses in the program sequence related directly to the dissertation include, but are not limited to, the following:
ELPS 760/765 in Year 1 and ELPS 789 in Year 2 (P12 Cohort)
ELPS 760 in Fall Year 1 and ELPS 789 in Year 2 (CC Cohort)
ELPS 770 in Year 1 and ELPS 775 in Year 2
ELPS 780 in Year 1 and ELPS 785 in Year 2
ELPS 775 or ELPS 785 and ELPS 789 in Year 2
ELPS 789 in Fall Year 2 and ELPS 789 in Spring Year 2
ELPS 789 in Year 2 and ELPS 789 in Year 3
In these courses, using a portion or parts of an assignment or assignments from a prior class in a subsequent class likely would not be considered a violation of academic integrity, as the ELPS Department interprets department and university policies, and prior instructor approval would generally not be needed.
In courses where a substantial portion of an entire assignment submitted from a prior course is being used in a subsequent course, prior instructor approval needs to be secured or violation of academic integrity may occur. If there is a question about the same assignment or a substantial portion of an entire assignment, students are expected to consult the instructor.