Assrooh Athakiyah

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Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity

Introduction

Smart Surouh Company is committed to adhering to intellectual property rights when designing and uploading all digital educational materials and published digital content—whether texts, images, videos, designs, or other media—on e-learning systems.

Concept of Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a fundamental pillar of academic, professional, and societal life. It represents intellectual honesty and scientific integrity in using, transmitting, documenting, publishing, and producing content. Therefore, academic integrity is a mandatory ethical framework at Smart Surouh Company, where its staff adheres to principles and best practices in handling educational content while ensuring intellectual property rights.

Academic Integrity Principles for Students

The company adheres to global academic standards and maintains a high level of quality in producing electronic content. Learners are expected to act professionally, honestly, and in alignment with academic integrity principles, especially during assessments and examinations.

All submitted assessments and assignments must reflect the learners’ personal efforts to assess acquired skills and achieve the expected educational outcomes.

The company provides guidance and technical support to communicate with learners and ensure their understanding of academic integrity requirements.

Forms of Academic Integrity Violations

Various actions are considered violations of academic integrity standards and principles, including:

  • Cheating: Copying others’ work or unauthorized use of notes, information, and materials in academic or training assessments.
  • Plagiarism: Quoting others’ work without proper citation.
  • Misuse of Collaboration: Relying on others to complete assigned tasks meant for personal effort (student or trainee).
  • Fabrication and Forgery: Altering or falsifying user-related information in any test or evaluation, or submitting a forged medical certificate to justify absence.

Impersonation: Claiming another person’s identity while attending training, taking exams, or completing assignments.

Mechanisms for Detecting Academic Integrity Violations

  • Using Turnitin as the company’s official tool to verify potential plagiarism in submitted content. This tool provides detailed reports on detected similarities.
  • Utilizing search engines to identify websites potentially referenced in authored content within the company.
  • Monitoring learners’ logins and attendance on the company’s e-learning platform.
  • Implementing Google Maps location tracking to verify learners’ locations.
  • Recording learners’ internet connection details to confirm identity and prevent others from completing their tests or assignments.
  • Assigning time limits per question in exams, requiring sequential progression.
  • Conducting regular monitoring of learners’ engagement in activities and assignments.

Disciplinary Actions for Students Violating Exam Rules and Academic Integrity

If an exam violation is confirmed, the institute may require the student to withdraw from the program to uphold academic integrity. Students who fail to comply with guidelines may face disciplinary measures, including restrictions on communication during exams.

Disciplinary Actions for Violations

  • Written warning.
  • Temporary suspension from one or more student activities where the violation occurred.
  • Issuance of a first and final warning as per the investigative committee’s decision.
  • Financial penalties.
  • Course deregistration for one or more courses where the violation occurred.
  • Failing grades in one or more subjects.
  • Temporary or permanent expulsion from the institute.
  • Suspension of degree issuance.
  • If fraud or deception in degree requirements is confirmed, the degree may be revoked.

Cheating Attempts During Exams

If a student is caught attempting to cheat, whether by participating in or initiating cheating, the following penalties apply:

  1. Issuance of a first or final warning as per the investigative committee’s decision.
  2. A score of zero in the exam.
  3. Failing the course.
  4. Deregistration from all courses for that semester.

If a student arranges for another person to take their exam on their behalf, they face the following penalties:

  1. Issuance of a first or final warning.
  2. A score of zero in the exam.
  3. Failing the course.
  4. Deregistration from all courses for that semester.

Note: Multiple disciplinary actions may be applied simultaneously under this policy.

Preventive Measures to Ensure Assessment Credibility and Quality of Learning Outcomes

Some institutions implement advanced digital tracking and monitoring systems specifically developed to oversee student activities, identify violations, and ensure the credibility of assessments. Preventative measures include:

  1. Recording student attendance on electronic systems, logging exact attendance times.
  2. Disabling copy-paste functions for assignments to ensure original work and detect violations.
  3. Increasing continuous assessments while reducing exam duration to match the average response time, with an additional buffer not exceeding 10% of the total exam duration.
  4. Scheduling exams simultaneously for students to prevent the sharing of questions and answers.
  5. Structuring questions to prevent copying, converting them into audio or video formats.
  6. Focusing on analytical and comprehension-based questions, ensuring at least 50% of the exam measures higher-order thinking skills.
  7. Quality assurance team review of exam questions and answers.
  8. Randomization of questions and answer choices, along with varied question types to assess critical thinking skills over simple recall-based questions.
  9. Strict penalties for suspected cheating or exam leaks, which may lead to permanent expulsion from the institute.
  10. Expanding question banks to include three times the number of required exam questions, ensuring randomized question selection per student.
  11. Avoiding publicly available questions, including those from textbooks, unless significantly modified.
  12. Rewording questions to prevent easy internet searches.
  13. Using proctored remote exams, including random visual monitoring for certain subjects.
  14. Implementing sequential question display, preventing students from returning to previous questions to minimize cheating risks.

Appeal Procedures for Disciplinary Actions

If a student wishes to appeal a disciplinary decision, they must:

  • Directly contact the Academic Advisory Department with a written explanation of why they violated the policy and submit a request to reduce or revoke the penalty. The university has the right to reject appeals if the reasons provided are unconvincing or violate policy.
  • Avoid discussing the appeal on social media or student groups. All communication must be through official institute channels to maintain neutrality and prevent external pressures.