Letter from the Academic Dean

Dear Learners:

Honor codes have long existed inside organizations, including higher education. Respect for the use of others ideas or words is part of CCCOnline's ethical practice, though it extends to your professional futures.

Whether a writer is in a college class, publishing or selling a written work, or creating documents for the workplace, the burden of responsible research and documentation will always be the writer's.

CCCOnline wants each student to have the chance to learn how to document correctly and provides resources to that end. Please ask your faculty or utilize the SMARTHINKING (online writing lab) to learn to do so.

It is your faculty's duty to notice if a piece of writing utilizes sources that do not meet documentation standards. How does this come to the faculty's attention? It often is the result of a break in style-meaning, the content doesn't sound like other work you've written.

It is the writer's duty to answer those questions. In some cases, it may involve you being asked to provide original documents from which you drew sources. The faculty may ask you to fax or mail paper copies of the original source to answer those questions, before a paper is graded.

Would it be easier for us to ignore it? Yes. Suspected plagiarism is time-consuming and troubling. However, plagiarism has attached consequences. Which can mean failure on the paper, and/or failure of the class, and/or referral to your home college.

Your instructors prefer to spend their time helping you learn correct documentation or reading research that acknowledges sources that are used. Please ask your faculty or go to SMARTHINKING for help with questions as your proceed with your research.

Sincerely,


Lisa Cheney-Steen, Academic Dean
CCCOnline
lisa.cheney-steen@cccs.edu