Understanding Penalties

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Introduction

Academic Integrity Violations (AIVs) can be filed as either warnings or offences. If an AIV is already on record, an offence must be filed.

Penalties follow a progressive and incremental approach.

Understanding Warnings

If a student has no prior incidents, faculty are encouraged to file a warning.

A warning can only be filed once, and only on the first incident. If a student has any previous incidents, the violation must be filed as an offence. 

Warnings do not receive a formal penalty applied under the Academic Integrity Policy. This does not necessarily mean that there is no consequence to the student. At the faculty's discretion, warnings can still include optional "in-rubric" grade deductions. This means:

If a portion of the assessment is unoriginal work, the student can receive a zero on that potion of the assessment.

For example, if an evaluation has a 40% Similarity Score, and an investigation determines that 40% of it was indeed copied from another student, then up to 40% can be deducted from the final grade the evaluation would have otherwise received. In essence, the faculty is only marking the 60% of the paper that the student wrote independently.

Or if a student is caught talking to a peer about test questions while on a “bathroom break,” questions answered before the break can be marked as normal, but questions after the break would receive a 0.

If the students meets some assessment outcomes but not others, grades can be deducted using the rubric.

For example, if a student completes an evaluation in their first language then uses Google Translate to translate it into English, and use of translation software is not permitted, the student can receive full marks for rubric sections relating to ideas and arguments but 0 marks on rubric sections related to language and writing skills.

As a general rule of thumb, keep in mind that students cannot receive grades for work they did not do, but they can receive partial grades for work that they completed with some assistance, or for work that was partially theirs.

For example, if a student had no intention to cheat and did their own writing, but did get some ideas from a peer during the brainstorming process, a warning with no grade deduction might be an appropriate way to emphasize the importance of avoiding unauthorized collaboration.

Or if a student completed most of an assignment themselves, but used generative AI to write a conclusion, they could receive only a minor in-rubric deduction for any part of the rubric that deals with the conclusion, or for the percentage of the word count that was written by AI.

But if a student copied a peer's paper in full and handed it in as their own, then they cannot receive any marks for that assessment, since they did not do any original work. If a student did not meet any of the assessment outcomes or create any original work, a warning is not appropriate and the incident should be filed as an offence. 

Understanding Offences: Selecting Progressive Penalties

If an incident is being filed as an offence then a formal academic penalty will be applied, in addition to any relevant "in-rubric" deductions.

Each new penalty should, ideally, progress a small but tangible step from previous penalties. This is known as the "progressive and incremental approach." Keep in mind that “excessive” jumps without a policy justification can be grounds for students to appeal.

After a student’s ID number is entered into the Integrity Violations form on the Employee portal, faculty will have access to the student’s incident history. This information is used to select an appropriately progressive penalty. Faculty are discouraged from accessing the incident history before this point, to avoid introducing bias to the investigation.  

Some general principles and unusual cases to keep in mind include:

Progression can occur within a category

Penalties do not necessarily have to progress a full category each time (i.e., from category 1 to 2). It is equally valid to progress to a more severe penalty within a category.

For example, if a student commits misconduct on an assessment that is worth 5%, and already has a prior AIV for which they received the category 1 penalty "Rework and Resubmit. The New Submission is Graded and an Appropriate Late Penalty is Applied," then for a subsequent AIV, the student may receive a category 1 penalty of "Partial Marks" or "Zero when the Assessment Value is Less than 10%."

Penalties can support student learning

When possible, best practice is to use penalty selection to support student learning.

For low-level penalties, if the specifics of the case and faculty capacity make it feasible, selecting a penalty with an option to re-write the submission is always good practice.

Similarly, if a student has a very recent previous incident, they may not have had time to course-correct between receiving that penalty and submitting the assessment that resulted in the next incident. In these situations, making a very moderate penalty jump or remaining at the same level may be more appropriate to support student learning. 

Penalties can jump forward or step back

In order to realistically address specific cases, penalties may sometimes need to "jump up" to a significantly higher level, or "step back" to a lower level." The goal is for the overall trend to remain progressive and incremental.

Sometimes it is necessary to make a large category jump. For example, if a student is caught cheating on a final exam and there is no question that there was a pre-meditated attempt to gain assessment advantage, then it is often appropriate to issue a 0 on the exam. Depending on the value of the exam, this might require a jump directly to a Category 3 penalty, even for a first offence.

Or, if previous faculty have remained at lower penalty levels without any progression, faculty may then use their discretion to progress based on the last penalty, based on the total number of incidents, or based on the severity of past incidents. Depending on the chosen approach, this can sometimes create a sudden "jump." This is okay.

On the other hand, if a previous faculty member has needed to make a large jump that does not reflect the total number of incidents, it is generally acceptable to “step back” the penalty to a lower category for the next incident, based on the number of total offences the student has accrued rather than on the level of the last filed incident.

For instance, if a student's first incident was a Category 2 "Zero When the Assessment Value is Between 10-19%," it does not mean that the student's second incident has to be a Category 3, "Zero in the Course" in order to "progress." Instead, it would usually be appropriate to step back to Category 1, or remain in Category 2.

It may also sometimes be appropriate to step back the penalty level based on the incident severity. For example, if a student has a previous severe incident but then commits a minor offence or the evidence suggests there was no intention to cheat (e.g., someone took their work without them knowing), it may not make contextual sense to issue a high-level penalty like a 0 in the course, even if that would be the next logical "step forward."

No automatic "three strikes" rule

Conestoga does not follow an automatic "three-strikes-you're-out" rule. Every penalty decision is made on a case-by-case basis while considering prior incident history. It is possible for students to be discontinued on their “third strike” - but it could also be on their second, or fifth, etc.

Important Note: Citing, Referencing, & Paraphrasing Education is not considered an Academic Integrity Violation. Faculty should disregard these incidents when selecting a penalty.

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Penalty Explanations

A detailed plain-language breakdown of all penalties, with specific instructions for how to apply each one.

Academic Penalties Explanation