Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial

According to Okanagan College's Academic Integrity Policy:

"Academic integrity is a cornerstone in the development and acquisition of knowledge. It is founded on values of trust, fairness, respect, honesty and responsibility."

It "Means the commitment to and demonstration of honest and ethical behaviour in an academic setting. It is the performance of all academic work without cheating, plagiarizing, lying, stealing, inappropriately collaborating, falsifying information, or receiving unauthorized assistance from any other person, resubmitting work completed for other classes, or using any source of information not appropriately authorized or attributed."

Plagiarism is in violation of the Academic Integrity policy. According to the policy:

Plagiarism includes but is not limited to, when a student:

1. submits or presents work of another person, in whole or part, as that of the student's own work;
2. fails to provide adequate attribution (author/creator must be acknowledged in the text, in footnotes, in endnotes, or in another accepted form of academic citation) to an author or creator whose work is incorporated into the student’s work, including another person's words, ideas, or entire works;  
3. paraphrases material from a source without sufficient acknowledgement;
4. does not ensure the work is the student's own after the student has sought assistance from a tutor or other scholastic aids.

• The entire tutorial, including most videos and quizzes, will take approximately 30-45 minutes
• Use the arrows at the bottom of each page to move through the tutorial
• Read through, or listen to, each section carefully and complete the interactive activities
• You will need an updated Adobe flash player to use some of the multiple choice quiz boxes

After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Define plagiarism
• Understand when and why you should cite your sources
• Understand the consequences of plagiarism
• Know what Okanagan College services exist to assist you

In an academic environment, using someone else's ideas without acknowledgement is considered plagiarism. Check out this video to see how some behaviours that are acceptable outside of school are unacceptable in a school setting.

Be sure to visit the Scenarios tab in this tutorial to see examples of common situations you may run across in your classes.