When submitting work in your courses, you must understand the meaning and consequences of plagiarism and cheating, which are extremely serious academic offences. If you have any doubt as to what might be considered plagiarism when you are preparing an essay or term paper, you should consult the course instructor to obtain appropriate guidelines. You should also consult the student guide to the meaning of plagiarism on the Academic Integrity website at www.mcgill.ca/integrity, where you will find links to instructional tutorials and strategies to prevent cheating. The Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures includes sections on plagiarism and cheating. You can find the Code in the Handbook on Student Rights and Responsibilities, available through the Academic Integrity website or at www.mcgill.ca/deanofstudents/rights.
The possession or use of unauthorized materials in any test or examination constitutes cheating. Responses on multiple-choice exams are normally checked by the Exam Security Computer Monitoring program. The program detects pairs of students with unusually similar answer patterns on multiple-choice exams. Data generated by this program can be used as admissible evidence in an investigation of a possible violation under Section 16 of the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.
The Office of the Dean of Students administers the academic integrity process as described in the Handbook on Student Rights and Responsibilities.