City University of Hong Kong
Academic Honesty
Fundamental principles for knowledge discovery and innovation
City University of Hong Kong
Academic Honesty

Introduction to academic honesty

What is academic honesty?

According to the International Centre for Academic Integrity, academic honesty is

‘a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals into action’ (ICAI, 1999)

So, academic honesty is a kind of ‘code of conduct’ that members of the academic community are expected to follow and which makes it possible for the academic community to achieve its aims and goals.

Academic honesty is related to the concept of intellectual property, which is a concept that you need to be aware of when you are engaged in discovery and innovation at CityU. If you would like assistance commercializing your useful ideas and designs, you can approach the Knowledge Transfer Office.

Why is academic honesty important?

Consider this situation:

You have been accused of a minor crime and have to go to court for a trial. Luckily, you have a lawyer to represent you, so you are hopeful that you won’t be fined or sent to prison. On the day of the trial, you find out that your lawyer got his professional qualifications by cheating on the examinations. What do you do?

The situation above highlights the importance of academic honesty in higher education. When a university provides a degree to a doctor, veterinarian, lawyer, engineer, or other future professional, members of society should be able to trust that those professionals really have mastered the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to take care of their patients, competently act for their clients, build safe structures, and so on.

Academic honesty at City University of Hong Kong

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is committed to high standards of academic honesty, and students are expected to ‘present their own work, give proper acknowledgement of other’s work, and honestly report findings obtained’.

CityU Rules on Academic Honesty

What academic honesty is NOT

If you fail to meet the expected standards of academic honesty, your behaviour is a form of ‘academic dishonesty’. According to the CityU Rules on Academic Honesty, the following behaviours are examples of academic dishonesty:

  • Plagiarism, e.g. the failure to properly acknowledge the use of another person’s work, or submitting for assessment material that is not the student’s own work or submission of substantially the same material (even a portion) for credit in more than one assessment task without proper acknowledgement

  • Misrepresentation of a piece of group work as solely the student’s own individual work

  • Collusion, e.g. allowing another person to gain advantage by copying one’s work or working with another student during an individual assessment

  • Unauthorized access to an examination/test paper

  • Possession/use of unauthorized material in assessment

  • Unauthorized communication during assessment

  • Use of fabricated data claimed to be obtained by experimental work, or data copied or obtained by unfair means

  • Impersonating another student at a test or an examination or allowing oneself to be impersonated

  • Contract cheating, e.g. employing or using services provided by a third party in graded coursework or at a test or an examination

  • Use of fraudulent documents and/or information to gain advantage for any academic work, e.g. submission of a fraudulent medical certificate to request for a make-up examination

Consequences

Academic dishonesty will lead to disciplinary action with penalties that can include expulsion from the University or deprivation of an academic award already conferred for the most serious infractions (See the CityU Rules on Academic Honesty for a full list of possible penalties, as well as the disciplinary procedure to be followed in cases of academic dishonesty).