The International Center for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals to action. The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity describes these core values in detail.
You are expected to create and express your own ideas for assignments. If you do choose to use other people’s ideas, you must acknowledge ownership by giving credit through citation. You also agree to do your own assignments independently or to give credit to anyone you collaborate with. During examinations, you are honest and do not cheat in any way.
It is really easy for instructors to check if you’ve copied someone else’s work. Instructors often check citations to see if the sources are correct. Many institutions also subscribe to text-checking databases, which can search through all assignments submitted to academic institutions. If you’re thinking about cheating or plagiarising, do you feel lucky?
The consequences of being caught for cheating or plagiarising can be severe:
In college or university, you are expected to treat your classmates and instructors with respect when speaking to them. The same is true when writing emails or communicating through blog comments, Facebook or Twitter.
Netiquette is network etiquette, an expected level of conduct or behaviour when communicating using the Internet. It is "good manners for the Internet." In other words, think before you post.
Netiquette advice from UBC
Email Netiquette Do's |
Email Netiquette Don'ts |
| DO ask permission to forward personal messages from other people. Most people assume emails will be kept private, so asking permission is good manners. | DON’T send virus warnings to contacts. Most virus warnings are hoaxes and can have viruses attached if opened. Instead, check Snopes.com or do a basic web search to see if the warning is real or a hoax. |
| DO use a descriptive subject line. This is particularly true if an email requires immediate action. | DON’T forward forwards. So you got a hilarious joke from your cousin’s uncle’s girlfriend that all your friends will like or you need to send an email to 25 people in the next hour or you’ll have bad luck for 5 years. If you think someone will find a forwarded message hilarious, send a short email asking if it’s OK to forward something. Better to ask than to send it and have your friends start to block or delete all messages from you. |
| DO double check the email address you are sending a message to. There is nothing worse than sending a personal message to the wrong person or, worse, to an email list of people. Check if there’s a “reply-to” address and don’t hit “send” until you’re sure you’re sending to the correct person/people. | DON’T send attachments until you check that the receiver has the software to open the file. There’s no point sending a massive file, only to find the person you sent it to doesn’t have the right program to open it. |
| DO remember that ANYTHING you send through email can be made public at any time. There are two parties involved in an email: the sender and the receiver, so keep in mind that you have to rely on the other person to remain trustworthy with the information you send. | DON’T send HTML-based emails if you can help it. It can be unreadable on certain computers and can be corrupted more easily than text-based emails. If you want the receiver to see an HTML-formatted page, send them a URL instead. |
| DO create named email address lists for groups you communicate with regularly. This means you are protecting email addresses from viruses that scan inbox email addresses. It also keeps email addresses private from other people on the list. If you don’t want or need email address lists, consider using Bcc: (blind copy) instead of To: or CC: to keep email addresses protected. | DON’T save passwords on public computers. If you save it once, the site will remember your password for the next person. For all public computers, make sure to unclick the box that asks to save your password. |
| DO double check your grammar and spelling. For work or school, especially, misspelled words or common grammatical mistakes can lessen the impact of the information you’re trying to share. Do a spell check or re-read your message before sending to save yourself a facepalm moment after you hit send. |