Plagiarism Policy
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of claiming the ideas, writings, images and other multimedia of others as one’s own without crediting those sources. Plagiarism is academically dishonest and carries severe consequences, up to and including removal from the course for those who engage in this unethical behavior. Uploading to or obtaining assignments from work-sharing websites is considered plagiarism. Michigan Virtual does not tolerate plagiarism and any assignment, quiz or test that shows evidence of this will be awarded a zero. Additionally, a call to your mentor will be made and your school’s plagiarism policy will be enforced on the first offense. For more details on the application of our policies, please see our Academic Integrity Matrix.
Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:
- Using ideas from another source without citing (giving credit to) that source.
- Using direct wording of even short phrases (e.g., 5 or more words in a row) from another source (even a cited source) without quotation marks.
- Slightly re-wording phrases from another source and passing the phrases as your own.
- Passing off another student’s work as your own, even if this work was given to you or posted on a work-sharing website.
- Using images from another source without citing (giving credit to) that source.
- Using computer code from another source without citing (giving credit to) that source.
- Collaboration without differentiation to show which contribution is unique to each student in a group. Note: Group collaboration should not result in a common submission for all participants. Not all assignments permit group work; defer to your instructor if you have questions.
