Academic Integrity

Naperville Central students are challenged to address the academic process enthusiastically, diligently, and most importantly, honestly. The Naperville Central community expects that students do their work honestly, without cheating or plagiarizing. The integrity of the academic program depends upon an honest approach by our students. It is the responsibility of our students, teachers, and administration to protect the integrity of our academic program.

Cheating or plagiarizing at any level, at any time, will not be tolerated. Consequently, when evidence of cheating or plagiarism exists, the assignment will receive no credit, the student has no opportunity to make up that work, and the deans will be notified.

In addition, any student who chooses to share his or her work with another will also lose credit. That credit will be lost even if the student claims to have no knowledge of the other person’s using the original paper.

Plagiarism Defined:

Naperville Central High School’s A+ Style Manual states: “Plagiarism is cheating. It is the act of using another person’s ideas or expressions in your work without acknowledging the source. In other words, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from someone else. Plagiarism is essentially theft – the stealing of someone else’s intellectual property.”

Source Documentation:

NCUSD203 subscribes to a web-based software service that offers students a learning tool when revising and editing papers for a class. Students submit their draft to the website for analysis and then receive an electronic report which identifies all of the information in the draft which can be found in another source, such as a professional publication and previously submitted student writings. Students then use that information to make certain that they have properly documented their outside sources of information. If they see from the report that they have not done so, then the student writer can take the opportunity to make the needed revisions in his or her draft before submitting it to the teacher for a grade. Using this software can work to “protect the student from adverse consequences” (NCUSD203 Design Qualities) by showing him or her where the originality of the writing/thought would be questioned during the writing process when the student can still make revisions in the work.

Teachers use the software in the same manner, efficiently uploading every paper that they collect for an assignment. Should a teacher discover that a student has borrowed information without documenting it, the teacher will take the appropriate next steps to ensure the academic integrity of the work. While this software might verify instances of plagiarism, the intent is for the students to submit their papers themselves for analysis before any teacher sees the paper. Then the student has the opportunity for revision as needed.