1. Mission Statement
World leading Explorers with Chinese Pride. Chengdu Cogdel School is dedicated to nurturing global citizens with both Chinese heritage and an international perspective. Through a developmental path of moral cultivation, broad knowledge spanning history and modernity, and the integration of Eastern and Western wisdom, students evolve into lifelong learners with a strong sense of social responsibility. While remaining rooted in traditional Chinese culture, they embrace diverse perspectives with open-mindedness and take proactive steps to confront and resolve global challenges.
2. School Vision
Focus on the future, care about people. Education must be future-oriented—not just imparting knowledge but also igniting students' inner motivation, enabling them to adapt to and even lead in this ever-changing world. Education must be human-centered, pursuing the happiness of individuals, not just academic scores and certificates.
3.Academic Honesty The vision of Chengdu Cogdel School is “Cultivating Proud Global Leaders.” At CSCD we strongly believe that academic honesty is the core cornerstone for students’ academic growth and development into lifelong learners, and it is also an essential quality for nurturing world leading explorers with Chinese pride and global citizens with both Chinese heritage and an international perspective. When students engage in academic misconduct, they forfeit the valuable “learning opportunity” for deep learning and independent thinking.
At present, the boundaries of intellectual property in the online environment are becoming increasingly blurred, and students are likely to be confused about the ownership of information.
Therefore, at Chengdu Cogdel School, we regard academic honesty as an important part of campus culture construction, and comprehensively guide students to establish correct academic values and adhere to academic sincerity.
3.1 Code of Conduct - Respect
For efficient and in-depth academic learning to take place in our school, it is necessary for all students to show respect for themselves and others, for their own and others’ belongings (including school property), and for time and the principles of academic learning. Student behaviour should at all times reflect personal accomplishment and uphold the school's educational reputation.
4. Academic Honesty Purposes/Goals
This Academic Honesty Policy is designed to clearly define the core expectations for all students to submit original and authentic academic work, and to clarify the norms and boundaries of academic behaviour on campus. It also helps the school management to accurately identify and fully understand all types of academic malpractice, formulate and implement targeted prevention and intervention measures, safeguard the pure academic ecology of the campus at the institutional level, and help students develop good habits of academic honesty.
5. Definitions
Malpractice is any behavior that results in, or may result in, a student or group of students gaining unfair advantages in academic work. Malpractices include but are not limited to plagiarism, collusion, duplication of work, cheating and falsifying data/work.
5.1 Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the representation of the ideas or work of another person, intentionally or unwittingly, without proper, clear and explicit acknowledgment.
Examples
- Submitting paper, homework assignment, or other project like laboratory report, artistic work, computer programme etc. as one’s own work that was created entirely or partially by someone else
- Failure to use quotation marks to signal that one is using another person’s precise words.
Even brief phrases must be enclosed in quotation marks and properly cited
- Failure to cite the source of quotations and paraphrases. One must cite the source of quotations; one must also cite the source of ideas and information that are not common knowledge even when paraphrased. Sources include unpublished as well as published items - for example, books, articles, material on the internet, television programs, instructors’ lectures, and people, including other students, friends and relatives
- Failure to identify the source of the elements of a nonverbal work (for example, a painting, dance, musical composition, photograph/ image, or mathematical proof) that are derived from the work of others
5.2 Collusion
Collusion is supporting the academic malpractice of another student or assisting another student in committing academic dishonesty.
Examples
- Writing a paper, laboratory report or other academic project for another student
- Allowing another student to copy from one’s examination paper, homework, assignment, or other academic project
- Assisting another student with a take-home examination, paper, homework assignment, or other academic project if one knows or suspects such assistance is not authorized by the instructor
- Sharing information regarding assessment contents and questions with other students
5.3 Cheating
Cheating is the use or attempted use of unauthorized assistance during an examination, on a writing assignment, homework assignment, or other academic project.
Examples
- Copying answers from another student’s examination paper, paper, homework assignment, with or without that person’s consent
- Providing one’s own work to be copied (collusion)
- Communicating in any way with another student or a third-party during an examination without the permission of the instructor
- Unauthorized use of materials or devices such as notes, textbooks, translators, cell phones, calculators or any other electronic device during an assignment or examination without the permission of the instructor
- Obtaining and/or reading a copy of an examination before its administration without the permission of the instructor
- Collaborating with other students or third parties on a take-home examination, paper, homework assignment, lab work or other academic project without the permission of the instructor
5.4 Fabrication
Fabrication is the creation of false data or citations.
Examples
- Fabrication of data: inventing or falsifying the data of a laboratory experiment, field project, CAS activity, or other academic project
- Fabrication of a citation: inventing a fake citation for a research paper or other academic project
- Alteration of an assignment: Altering a graded examination, paper, homework assignment, or other academic project and resubmitting it to the instructor in order to claim an error in grading
5.5 Duplication
Duplication of work is using the same academic work for more than one course without clear permission from the instructor. Students are expected to produce independent and original work for each course of study.
Examples
- Submitting a project in more than one course for a grade
- Submitting a lab report for more than one course without discussing it with the teachers involved 6 Roles and Responsibilities All parties involved in the process of students' academic learning and growth have the responsibility and obligation to promote the construction of academic honesty on campus. Our school defines the Do’s and Don’ts for all parties in practicing academic honesty, and jointly creates a sincere and honest academic atmosphere in the campus.
Do’s Don’ts Design inquiry-based assessment tasks to reduce the possibility of plagiarism from the source. For example:
"Suppose you are planning a Mars research study tour, what content do you need to investigate, how to design the itinerary and promotion plan, etc."
Design assessment tasks with single answers that can be directly retrieved on the internet. For example: "Write a short essay introducing Mars."
Design challenging tasks that go beyond factual memorization and require critical thinking and application, matching students' academic ability levels.
Design overly difficult tasks that tempt students to use dishonest means to complete them because they cannot finish independently.
Assign academic tasks that inspire students' original thinking and expression, and eliminate plagiarism through task design.
Assign academic tasks whose answers can be directly obtained through search engines.
Systematically teach students the proper citation methods for various materials, including pictures, websites, music, documents, etc., and clarify citation scenarios and requirements according to different types of assignments.
Assign research-based tasks to students without explaining how to acknowledge and cite original materials and sources.
Teach students to reflect on what they have read, take study notes by paraphrasing and extracting core viewpoints, and cultivate their independent information processing ability.
Allow students to directly copy/paste, highlight or extract entire paragraphs of materials without independent thinking and processing.
Do’s Don’ts Combine disciplinary characteristics to guide students to understand the boundaries of peer assistance—help classmates organize their thinking rather than give direct answers, and eliminate ghostwriting and plagiarism.
Punish students who help classmates with assignments directly without any prior guidance and education.
Practice academic honesty in teaching materials, classroom lectures and teaching research, and set a good example for students.
Claim others' ideas and works as one's own, and commit academic misconduct in teaching and research.
Supervise and manage students during all types of academic assessments such as exams and classroom tasks.
Provide unnecessary direct assistance during students' completion of academic assignments, which affects the originality of the results.
Keep assessment materials such as exam papers and test questions confidential and well-managed to prevent question leakage.
Leave assessment materials such as exam papers and test questions unattended at will, leading to information leakage.
Teach students the guidelines for the proper use of academic resources and help them understand the core connotation of academic honesty.
Make students mistakenly think that academic honesty only applies to classrooms and exams, not to daily learning and extracurricular research.
Clearly inform students of the requirements, boundaries and evaluation criteria for collaborative and individual assignments.
Fail to clearly inform students of the requirements, leading to their vague understanding of the norms for completing individual assignments.
/ Do’s Don’ts Clarify the specific codes of conduct and core expectations of academic honesty for all faculty, staff and students, ensuring full awareness and practice by all.
Merely hope that students will abide by academic honesty voluntarily, without formulating clear guiding norms and implementation requirements.
Focus on teaching students the methods and skills of academic honesty, cultivating honesty literacy Only require students to put an end to academic misconduct through verbal Do’s Don’ts through positive guidance, rather than merely emphasizing the consequences of misconduct.
warnings and criticisms, without carrying out systematic academic honesty education.
Formulate step-by-step detailed rules for dealing with academic misconduct, and adopt differentiated treatment according to the circumstances of the act, the student's subjective intent and attitude towards correction.
Impose the harshest penalties directly on students who commit academic misconduct for the first time, ignoring the core goal of education and guidance.
Build a campus culture that honors honesty, and integrate academic honesty into all aspects of campus running and daily management.
Turn a blind eye to academic fraud and misconduct on campus, and indulge the breeding of bad academic atmosphere.
Include this Academic Honesty Policy in the official school handbook as the core criterion for academic behavior of the whole school.
/ Inform all teachers, students and parents of the definition criteria and prevention methods of academic misconduct through various channels such as campus announcements, teacher training, student class meetings and parent platforms.
Assume that all teachers, students and parents are aware of the content of this policy, without carrying out regular publicity and explanation work.
Do’s Don’ts To Avoid Plagiarism:
Submit authentic academic work based on personal original ideas, and standardly label and acknowledge the ideas and works of others that are quoted or referenced;Cite all reference sources using the Harvard referencing format, and fully label all materials such as books, journals, websites, photos, music, interviews, even if there is doubt about the scope of labeling;Paraphrase the ideas of others in appropriate scenarios, or label To Avoid Plagiarism：
Even if the assignment is formatted according to standard specifications, no source of citation is labeled; Directly copy the words, views and academic achievements of others;Steal ideas and views from various resources, pass them off as personal original without any labeling or rewriting.
Do’s Don’ts the sources by means of in-text citation;Reasonably use various resources to support personal views and creation, and sublimate original ideas.
When Collaborating Collaborate around common assessment goals with clear division of labor, full participation and joint completion; Actively communicate and share ideas and problem-solving thinking in collaborative tasks;Provide learning support for classmates by asking questions, brainstorming and sorting out ideas.
When Collaborating Shirk responsibilities in collaborative tasks and let other classmates take on all the work;Allow others to copy personal academic achievements, even if the other party only makes minor changes;Directly tell classmates the answers and replace them to complete the thinking and creation process.
When Taking TestsFocus on one's own test paper and complete all test content independently;Do not spread test questions, answers and related content to others after the exam;Only use notes, electronic devices and other tools approved by the teacher in advance to take the exam.
When Taking TestsPeek at other students' test papers and copy answers;Disclose key information such as test questions and answers to other students;Use various cheating tools such as "cheat sheets" and electronic devices not approved by the teacher.
Do’s Don’ts Take the initiative to understand and be familiar with the school's academic honesty policy, cooperate with the school to carry out family education, and guide children to establish correct academic honesty values.
Be completely unaware of the school's academic honesty policy and fail to carry out relevant honesty education and guidance at home.
Provide children with learning support and encouragement at home, help them sort out learning ideas, solve learning difficulties, and guide them to complete academic tasks independently.
Do homework, lab reports, papers and other academic tasks for children instead, allowing them to pass them off as personal original achievements.
Help children plan their time reasonably, balance academic burden and after-school life, so that children can complete various assignments and assessment tasks on time and independently, and resist the temptation of academic misconduct from the source.
Ask for leave for children at will to let them have more time to study or complete projects, which affects the normal learning rhythm and academic accumulation.
7. Consequences of Academic Dishonesty
As a school community, we understand that students need professional guidance and patient support in the process of establishing academic honesty awareness and developing academic honesty habits. Therefore, we will deal with all academic misconduct on a case-by-case basis, with the ultimate goal of guiding students to correct their behaviors and establish correct academic values. When academic misconduct is identified, the instructor will first clarify the nature of the infraction and the student’s subjective intent, and then determine the corresponding corrective measures to be taken by the instructor and the student accordingly. Specific measures may include any of the following:
- Communication with parents via email, letter, or phone call to share the student's situation
- Holding a tripartite meeting with parents, instructors and school administrators to discuss the corrective direction together
- Requiring the student to redo the academic work affected by academic misconduct
- Administering a lower or failing grade for the affected academic work
- Placing a temporary or permanent notation on the student’s academic record indicating the fact of academic misconduct.
8.1 Communication of Policy to the CSCD Community
The Chengdu Cogdel School (CSCD) Management Team disseminates this policy document to all faculty and staff at the beginning of each academic year, and makes it available for review to all students, parents and members of the school community. This policy is included in the New Family Orientation Package and is also published on the school’s official website. Teachers share the core content and implementation requirements of this policy with students in a systematic way, supported by the IB Academic Honesty Flyer (Parents-Students). This policy should be read and implemented in conjunction with the CSCD Language Policy, CSCD Assessment Policy and CSCD SEN Policy.
8.2 Policy Review
The CSCD Management Team establishes an Academic Honesty Policy Review Committee, composed of teacher representatives, administrator representatives and parent representatives. The committee collaboratively evaluates and reviews this policy document on an annual basis, using the latest supporting information and educational concepts provided by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), to ensure the policy’s scientificity, timeliness and adaptability to the school’s actual situation.
9.References and Resources
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2023), Academic Honesty Policy
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2022), Programme Standards and Practices (Revised Edition)
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2022), MYP: From Principles into Practice (Updated August 2022)
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2014), Academic Honesty in the IB Educational Context
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2011), Academic Honesty
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2013), Handbook of Procedures for the Diploma Program
- International Baccalaureate Organization (2011), General Regulations: Diploma Program
- www.ibo.org
- International School (2025), Regulations on Schoolwork, Homework and Examination Assignments, Plagiarism and Copyright Violations
- Henrico County Public Schools (2020-2021), Code of Academic Honesty
- Suncoast Community High School Academic Honesty Policy, Palm Beach County Public Schools, 2012
- South Fork High School Academic Honesty Policy, Martin County Public Schools, 2013
- "Academic Honesty Policy", Mountain Ridge Middle School, 2014, 3 April 2016
- Student Code of Conduct, Marion County Public Schools, 2013
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