Academic Integrity Policy

VirtualSC (VSC) takes academic integrity very seriously and expects a full commitment to it from each VSC student. To this end, all VSC teachers manually review all student submissions,  and they also utilize a myriad of technologies (turnitin, etc.) to check student work for authenticity.  All suspected infractions, whether detected by technology or identified through individual academic assessment by the teacher, will undergo careful review to determine whether or not the infractions are blatantly intentional.

Academic integrity means:

• Students will not submit work completed by or copied (in full or in part) from another person .  This includes classmates, friends, parents/guardians, siblings, etc.
• Students will not submit work copied (in full or in part) and pasted from the Internet. This includes exact sentences, paragraphs, videos, logos, images, templates, etc.  
• Students will not resubmit work (in whole or part) they have previously submitted.
• Students will not submit work that reflects the ideas of another person, regardless of whether or not students use the other person’s exact words.
• Students will work independently on all assignments unless they receive permission from their VirtualSC teacher to work with another student.
• Students will not allow others to copy their work.
• Students will not misuse content from the Internet.
• Students will not use any external materials or testing aids on final exams, unless otherwise noted on the front page of the exam.
• Students will properly punctuate and cite all ideas from others they wish to use to support their own ideas.
• Students will contact their VirtualSC instructors for help in avoiding plagiarism.  

Consequences for Cheating

First Offense

• On the first infraction, the student will be given a zero on the assignment and will be given the opportunity to complete the Academic Integrity Tutorial for help in avoiding future infractions.    
• The student, parent/guardian, and school counselor will be sent a message/email notifying them of the offense, the action taken, and the consequence if a second infraction occurs.   
• The infraction will be documented in the student’s permanent VirtualSC file.

Second Offense

• On the second infraction, the student will be administratively removed from the course and assigned a “Dropped” status.  Please review the Withdrawal Policy for more information.
• The student, parent/guardian, and school counselor will be sent a message/email notifying them of the offense, the action taken, and the consequence, which is removal from the course
• The infraction will be documented in the student’s permanent VirtualSC file.  

NOTE: A student in violation of the VSC Academic Integrity Policy is also subject to discipline by his/her home district/school per the district/school’s discipline policy.