Academic Integrity
The PA Program expects the highest standards of academic integrity throughout the university and our medical communities. Academic integrity and ethical behavior are vital to an academic environment and to the development of qualified PAs; therefore, graduate students are responsible for learning and upholding professional standards of research, writing, assessment and ethics. In the academic community the high value placed on truth implies a corresponding intolerance of scholastic dishonesty. Written or other work which a student submits must be the product of his/her own efforts and must be consistent with appropriate standards of professional ethics. Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism, cheating and other forms of dishonest behavior is prohibited.
Academic Dishonesty
Alleged violations of the UMES Physician Assistant Program involving academic dishonesty such as falsification, collusion, plagiarism or cheating will be resolved through the proceedings of the Progress and Promotion Committee (PPC). Faculty, preceptors and staff who become aware of academic dishonesty may choose to first counsel that student. However, in all cases the incident should be documented and submitted to the Office of Student Affairs for inclusion in the student’s file. Complaints can be made confidentially. Every effort should be made to maintain the confidentiality of all the members involved in the alleged incident. The accused will have the opportunity to review the evidence against them including information about witnesses involved in the case.
An existing objective of the Physician Assistant Program is to promote the highest standards of professionalism among its students. The integrity of work performed is the cornerstone of professionalism. Acts of falsification, cheating, and plagiarism are acts of academic dishonesty, which show a failure of integrity and a violation of our educational objectives; these acts will not be accepted or tolerated. The following definitions and guidelines describe violations related to academic dishonesty.
- Plagiarism as a form of cheating is unacceptable. Plagiarism is the act of presenting as one‘s own creation works actually created by others. Plagiarism consists of:
- Taking ideas from a source without clearly giving proper reference that identifies the original source of the ideas and distinguishes them from one‘s own;
- Quoting indirectly or paraphrasing material taken from a source without clearly giving proper reference that identifies the original source and distinguishes the paraphrased material from one‘s own compositions;
- Quoting directly or exactly copying material from a source without giving proper reference or otherwise presenting the copied material as one‘s own creation.
- Submitting your own work use from other sources or classes. This includes resubmitting, copying, or paraphrasing already submitted assignments without proper citations. Students are not permitted to resubmit work from previous coursework.
- Falsification is unacceptable. Falsification includes but is not limited to:
- Creating false records of academic achievement;
- Altering or forging records; misusing, altering, forging, falsifying or transferring to another person, without proper authorization, any academic record;
- Conspiring or inducing others to forge or alter academic records.
- Cheating is also unacceptable. Cheating includes but is not limited to:
- Giving answers to others in a test situation without permission of the tester;
- Taking or receiving answers from others in a test situation without permission of the tester;
- Having possession of test materials without permission;
- Taking, giving, or receiving test materials prior to tests without permission;
- Having someone else take a test or complete one‘s assignment;
- Submitting as one‘s own work, work done by someone else;
- Permitting someone else to submit one‘s work under that person’s name;
- Falsifying research data or another research material;
- Copying, with or without permission, any works, (e.g., essays, short stories, poems, etc.), from a computer hard drive or discs and presenting them as one‘s own.
- Collusion is also unacceptable. Collusion includes but is not limited to:
- Completing any portion of an assignment, report, project, experiment or exam for another student;
- Claiming as their own work any portion of an assignment, report, project, experiment or exam that was completed by another student, even with that other student’s knowledge and consent;
- Providing information about an exam (or portions of an exam) to another student without the authorization of the instructor;
- Seeking or accepting information provided about an exam (or portions of an exam) from another student without the authorization of the instructor.
Artificial Intelligence Guidelines
The UMES PA Program recognizes that students may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a helpful tool for student assignments and studying. Below are guidelines that enable students to use AI effectively, ethically, and in a way that supports student learning.
Be open and honest about the use of AI
If you use an AI tool like ChatGPT for classroom work, acknowledge it, so that your professor knows. For example, if a student uses ChatGPT to draft a classroom presentation, the student should be completely transparent, “I used ChatGPT to write a first draft of this assignment. I critically evaluated the accuracy of ChatGPT’s draft, verifying facts and ideas, then I largely rewrote the AI draft in my own words and phrases.”
A student will need to cite an AI tool like ChatGPT in his/her reference list using APA or MLA guidelines. Failure to cite AI tools is plagiarism and if any student is found using AI without citation, the student will be reprimanded according to the professionalism violation policy.
Add your own research and ideas
Even if a student acknowledges that he/she used ChatGPT and checked the content’s truthfulness, a student cannot simply turn in the ChatGPT content as your entire assignment. Use ChatGPT as a basis for classwork–for example, students can ask ChatGPT for good research topics, or have it help them create an outline for a paper–but can not use ChatGPT for an assignment without adding his/her own research and ideas.
ChatGPT can help students, but the essential, meaningful core of any paper or other assignment is their own work and their own thoughts, not whatever fundamental elements they prompted ChatGPT for.
The UMES PA Program adopted this policy from the University of Maryland Global Campus Library. Please refer to the following website for more information, AI Literacy – Artificial Intelligence – UMGC Library at University of Maryland Global Campus.
