Tallinn English College

ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY

Academic honesty is one of the cornerstones of all academic work. All students and
teachers in Tallinn English College must understand the basic meaning significance of
the following concepts.

• Authenticity and original authorship:

An authentic piece of work is one that is based on the student’s individual and original ideas
with the ideas and work of others fully acknowledged. Therefore, all assignments, written or
oral, completed by a student for assessment must wholly and authentically use that student’s
own language and expression.

Where sources are used or referred to, they must be fully and appropriately acknowledged,
whether they are in the form of
 direct quotation - always enclosed within quotation marks or italics.
 paraphrase - the rendition of another person’s words presented in a new style and
integrated grammatically into the writing.

• Intellectual property:

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind, including copyright and ohter rights
connected to it and industrial property (patents, trademarks, design).

Copyright do not protect ideas or facts, but protect an author's particular way or form of
expression, for example music, art, drama, movies, multimedia products and computer
programs.

The students and teachers of Tallinn English College respect the intellectual property of
others.

• Acknowledgement:
  All ideas and work of other persons, regardless of their source, must be
acknowledged;
 CD-Rom, e-mail messages, web sites on the Internet and any other electronic
media must be treated in the same way as books and journals;
 The sources of all photographs, maps, illustrations, computer programs, data,
graphs, audio-visual and similar material must be acknowledged if they are not the
student's own work;
 Passages that are quoted verbatim must be enclosed within quotation marks or in
italics and references provided;
 The source of an idea if that idea emerged as a result of discussion with, or
listening to, a fellow student, a teacher or any other person must be acknowledged
as well.

It is not sufficient to simply list sources in a bibliography or in footnotes. There are

several standard ways of acknowledgement - consult your teacher for the most suitable
format. In written work use the format acknowledged Tallinn English College.

• Respect for the integrity of all forms of assessment

The student is ultimately responsible for ensuring that all work submitted for assessment is
authentic, with the work or ideas of others fully and correctly acknowledged.

Starting from Form 8, the students need to include a statement on the title page of their
paper (on the first page if the work submitted does not have a title page) that would
confirm the authenticity of what they have written. The statement should be one of the
following:

 In Estonian: Esitatud töö on kirjutatud ning on täies ulatuses <õpilase nimi>

enda töö.

 In English (for IB): The assignment that follows has been written by, and is
entirely the work of, <õpilase nimi>.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

Academic dishonesty (malpractice) is behavior that results in, or may result in, the student or
any other student gaining an unfair advantage in one or more assessment components.

Malpractice includes:

• Plagiarism: The representation of the ideas or work of another person as the student’s
own. The original source must always be acknowledged.

• Collusion: Supporting malpractice by another student, as in allowing one’s work to be

submitted for assessment by another. However, sometimes collaboration with other
student is permitted. Still, the final work must be produced independently, even if it is
be based on similar data. This means that the abstract, introduction, content,
conclusion or summary of a piece of work must be written in each student’s own
words and cannot be the same as another student’s.

• Duplication of work: The presentation of the same work for different subjects. For
example, if a student submits the same, or very similar, piece of work for the in-depth
study in History homework and for an extended essay in History. However, it is
perfectly acceptable for a student to study one aspect of a topic for homework and
another aspect of the same topic for an extended essay.

• Any other behaviour that gains an unfair advantage for a student or that affects
the results of another student. Examples are fabricating data for an assignment,
taking unauthorized material into an examination room, misconduct during an
examination (including any attempt to disrupt the examination or distract another
student; in any way supporting the passing on of information related to the
examination; copying the work of another student; failing to comply with the
instructions of the invigilator; impersonating another student), stealing examination
papers, discussing the content of an examination paper with a person outside the
 immediate school community within 24 hours after the examination; falsifying a CAS
record.

Malpractice is viewed as a serious academic offence and will be penalized when discovered.

Suspected malpractice

The teacher has the right to verify the authenticity of the student’s work by using the web-
based plagiarism discovery program Turnitin. In the IB branch of the curriculum, the IBO
might apply similar devices to detect plagiarism in student work.

If a teacher or the coordinator has reason to suspect that a student's work may not be
authentic, the teacher can apply the following measures:

Form Consequences of plagiarism

1.-2. Discussion
3.-5. Discussion, correction
6.-8. Correction, rewriting
9.-G1 rewriting, grade penalties, negative grade (1)
G2-G3 Rewriting, failure on the assignment, negative grade (1)

If suspected malpractice is founded in IB candidates work then the situation is resolved within
the school. If it happens making the extended essay, teacher have to inform IB coordinator,
and two possible courses of action will be adopted:
• The candidate is allowed one opportunity to revise and resubmit the work. This must be
completed in time for the coordinator to send the work to the examiner to arrive by the
appropriate IBO deadline.
• If there is insufficient time to allow a revision of the work, the result is no grade being
awarded for the subject concerned

If possible plagiarism is identified after a candidate’s work has been accepted or submitted for
assessment, IBO will be informed so that an investigation can be undertaken.
If possible plagiarism is identified by the IBO, further investigation will be conducted by the
final award committee.
No result will be issued for the candidate (or candidates) in the subject under investigation
until all inquiries are complete and a final decision has been reached.

If a candidate is found guilty of malpractice in the production of assignments for a

component, no grade will be awarded for the subject. As a result, no diploma will be awarded.
The candidate may register for future examinations at least one year after the session in which
malpractice was established. If a case of malpractice is very serious, the final award can
decide that the candidate will not be permitted to register for examinations in any future
session.

If malpractice by a candidate is brought to the attention of the IBO after the issue of results,
the IB diploma may be withdrawn from a candidate at any time.

Source:
Academic honesty: guidance for schools, IBO, Genève September 2003