JMU Honor Code

Honor Code Tutorials - Use requires JMU EID and Passoword

PHOTO - Students Attending Outdoor Class

As a university, JMU seeks to instill the importance of academic integrity, honesty, and virtue in all its students. In order to foster such a learning community, it is imperative that students, matriculating through JMU's academic programs, have a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities as members of an academic community.

Below is a listing of key violations from the "The Honor Code" section of the Student Handbook.

"Violations of the Honor Code include, but are not limited to, taking or attempting to take any of the following actions:

  1. Using unauthorized materials or receiving unauthorized assistance during an examination or in connection with any work done for academic credit. Unauthorized materials may include, but are not limited to, notes, textbooks, previous examinations, exhibits, experiments, papers or other supplementary items.
  2. Giving false or misleading information regarding an academic matter.
  3. Copying information from another student during an examination.
  4. Rendering unauthorized assistance to another student by knowingly permitting him or her to see or copy all or a portion of an examination or any work to be submitted for academic credit.
  5. Obtaining prior knowledge of examination materials (including … using copies of previously given examinations obtained from files maintained by various groups and organizations) in an unauthorized manner.
  6. Selling or giving to another student unauthorized copies and any portion of an examination.
  7. Using a commercially prepared paper or research project or submitting for academic credit any work completed by someone else.
  8. Falsifying or attempting to falsify class attendance records for oneself, or for someone else, or having another falsify attendance records on your behalf.
  9. Falsifying material relating to course registration or grades, either for oneself or for someone else.
  10. Falsifying reasons why a student did not attend a required class or take a scheduled examination.
  11. Taking an examination in the place of another student.
  12. Making unauthorized changes in any reported grade or on an official academic report form.
  13. Falsifying scientific or other data submitted for academic credit.
  14. Collaborating in an unauthorized manner with one or more other students on an examination or any work submitted for academic credit.
  15. Committing the act of plagiarism - the deliberate copying, writing or presenting as one's own the information, ideas, phrasing of another person without proper acknowledgement of the true source.
  16. Using computing facilities or library resources in an academically dishonest manner.
  17. Falsifying evidence, or intimidating or influencing someone in connection with an honor violation investigation, hearing or appeal.

All students are strongly urged to ask their instructors to clarify what types of conduct are authorized or unauthorized in each course."1

Penalties in response to violating the JMU Honor Code vary on a case-by-case basis. However, students should note that procedures and penalties related to the Honor Code have been revised for the 1998-1999 academic year. In most situations, students and faculty will address violations by working out penalties and/or remedies together. Students should expect penalties to range from actions such as receiving a "Zero" on an assignment, or receiving a failing grade for the course for major, blatant violations. Lesser violations may consist of warnings, letter-grade reductions on a particular assignment, or a letter-grade reduction for the entire course. Please ask your course instructors for their general policies related to Honor Code violations.

1 Excerpted from the Student Handbook: Your Resource for JMU Policy, available at http://www.jmu.edu/judicial/handbook.html.