Academic Integrity Policy

Preamble

Royal Military College Saint-Jean (RMC Saint-Jean) fully supports the principles of intellectual integrity. As members of RMC Saint-Jean and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), students commit to demonstrate rigorous honesty by adhering to the principles and spirit of academic integrity. Academic integrity is a commitment to respect, whatever the circumstances, the four core values of honesty, justice, respect, and responsibility. The College motto, ‘Truth, Duty, Valour’, defends these values. Any academic integrity violation, regardless of apparent severity, opposes these values and, therefore, will be considered an attack on the overall quality of the academic work and will incur sanctions for the student who commits such an offence.

General Definition

An academic integrity violation, regardless of intention, constitutes a breach in the ethics of the academic process. It is the misrepresentation of the authenticity of academic work, or the participation in an act that could facilitate such misrepresentation. Such a violation includes plagiarism, cheating, fraud, falsification, etc.

Without limiting the scope of the above definition, the following acts constitute academic integrity violations:

  1. Plagiarizing the work of others, or content generated by generative artificial intelligence (AI), by appropriating their texts or their ideas, intentionally or not, notably including copying (in whole or in part), or paraphrasing, while failing to acknowledge the source properly.
  2. Working as a team on work specified as individual, allowing another to copy one’s work, sharing one’s work with another, facilitating access to one’s work, or failing to clearly and appropriately indicate collaboration or assistance obtained.
  3. Cheating by violating a rule or practice, notably by giving, receiving, sharing or using unauthorized information or assistance, including generative AI, before or during a test or examination, or attempting to do so; by not respecting the conditions of an examination or evaluation; by using or attempting to use an unauthorized electronic device during an evaluation.
  4. Tampering with official documents, including electronic records; tampering with or manipulating marks on an evaluation.
  5. Falsifying information or data, including altering, inventing, or manipulating experimental data, by citing invented references, or including sources that were not used or consulted in the writing of the work in question
  6. Providing misleading or false statements regarding work completed.
  7. Submitting a paper already submitted for another course without the teacher’s permission; failing to acknowledge that work has already been submitted for credit elsewhere.
  8. Obtaining, or attempting to obtain, an unfair advantage for an evaluation by, for example, accessing examination material, obstructing another student’s work, destroying material or reference tools, or engaging in intimidation, harassment, extortion, or blackmail.
  9. Not following ethical standards or guidelines in research.
  10. Impersonating a candidate at an examination.
  11. Unauthorized dissemination of course material, including digital or multimedia content, such as course recordings, video capsules, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

Sanctions

When a violation is confirmed, the following sanctions are applied:

  1. A note on file;
  2. Loss of privilege to write the supplemental evaluation for the course in question.

Additionally, according to the nature and severity of the violation, one or more of the following sanctions will be applied:

  1. Reduction of marks, down to zero, for the work;
  2. Reduction of marks, down to zero, for the course;
  3. Assignment of supplemental work;
  4. Suspension;
  5. Expulsion.

When a case involves multiple violations, the minimum sanctions applied will be those associated with the most severe violation.

Repeat violations may be subject to course failure, suspension, or expulsion. However, in no case is any violation exempt from the maximum sanctions allowed, including expulsion, depending on the severity of the violation.

The student may also be referred to methodological support for corrective purposes.

Aggravating or mitigating circumstances may be taken into account in determining sanctions. However, beyond a certain threshold of seriousness, a minimum sanction is no longer possible.

If the case being assessed is weighted between 0 and 10%, the student concerned has three working days after receiving the decision to register a written protest (by e-mail) with the Registrar’s administrative assistant of governance. The case is automatically submitted to the Academic Integrity executive council.

If the case being assessed is weighted greater than 10%, the student concerned has ten working days to register a written appeal (by e-mail) to the administrative assistant (Governance) in the Registrar’s office. The Appeal Committee will study this appeal and will formulate within five working days a decision that is final and unappealable.

Date modified: