Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity at The Pennsylvania State University, and all members of the University community are expected to act in accordance with this principle. Failing to uphold Academic Integrity is a serious issue at the University whether the students are sitting in a lecture hall, a small classroom or at their kitchen table working online. The following resources will help explain the Academic Integrity policies, procedure and practices at Penn State.

Penn State Faculty Senate Policy on Academic Integrity

Recognizing the importance of academic integrity to the Penn State community, the University Faculty Senate adopted a new Academic Integrity policy, Spring 2000. The shared conviction, represented in the procedures that follow, is that academic integrity is best taught and reinforced by faculty as an element of the teaching and learning process. Only in the limited instances in which faculty believe that disciplinary, as well as academic, sanctions are called for should the process move to the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response.  See full details at Policy G-9: Academic Integrity.

College of Earth and Mineral Sciences on Academic Integrity

See details on the College's website, including the College's practices and procedures related to academic dishonesty cases.

World Campus resources for students

Penn State World Campus also provides student-facing information about academic integrity.

Additional Resources

Turnitin
Turnitin is a web-based writing assessment toolkit which allows instructors to provide feedback to students through markup tools, rubrics, proofing tools and originality reports to detect plagiarism. Find out more at

Penn State Keep Teaching - Academic Integrity
The Keep Teaching website includes a page on academic integrity with helpful information on "Practical Academic Integrity Plan for Penn State Educators," "Planning for Academic Integrity in Your Course," "Communicating with Your Students about Academic Integrity," and "The Penn State Academic Integrity Process"

iStudy for Success!
iStudy for Success! is a website containing tutorials for students including learning modules on plagiarism, copyright, and academic integrity.