Plagiarism Policy & Alerts

Institutional Plagiarism Policy

Use the following to determine if a Plagiarism Alert is needed.

• If you can answer yes to one or more of the following questions, do not submit an alert:

Is this the first issue the student has had in your course?
Is the offense minor and something the student can easily correct?
Generally speaking, is the student displaying an earnest effort to apply the principles of APA and giving credit for others' work?

In this case, CSU Global provides you autonomy to address this in a manner that appropriately fits the level of offense, which may include one of the following actions:

• Grade the work as is, deducting points while making certain to address the concern, and provide examples of how the student can correct their mistake(s) in future work.
• Allow the student the opportunity to revise their work and resubmit within a certain deadline (if the student fails to resubmit, you may choose to award a grade of "0")

• Please help support students in these situations by clearly identifying the mistake, providing an example, and reinforcing the use of Online Tutoring and CSU Global Writing Center services.

If you can answer yes to one or more of the following questions, submit an alert:

Do you believe the student is not the author of the paper, having either copied another student's work or acquired the paper through a paper writing service?
Is the offense egregious and a blatant disregard for the principles of academic writing?
Is the student unwilling to correct previous issues, and have there been multiple plagiarism issues throughout the course despite coaching efforts?
If you have any questions regarding alerts or the plagiarism policy, please contact the Office of Student Affairs at student.affairs@csuglobal.edu.

Plagiarism, Alerts & CopyLeaks

CopyLeaks Reports

CopyLeaks training session: https://youtu.be/9kMgqPlJ0BI

Links to CopyLeaks Support:

• Canvas Resources
• Copyleaks Instructor Guide
• How to View Analytics in Copyleaks as an Instructor
• Copyleaks Student Guide

CopyLeaks

CopyLeaks Tip: A high CopyLeaks score isn’t necessarily enough to justify a plagiarism alert. Scores must be assessed by faculty first. Is the score triggered by the student’s own previous work? Is it a matter of their over-using lengthy quotes? These are not academic integrity concerns. Your first move should be filtering the results in the report and considering the context.

When a student assessment has a CopyLeaks similarity rating over 30% or higher or they have an AI score over 0%, you should carefully review the document. Review the sources of material in the CopyLeaks Report and determine the following:

1. Is the student taking information from their listed references? Is there an issue with paraphrasing or sharing quoted information?
2. Is the student using resources that are not listed? Is there an issue with terminal references or in-text citations?
3. Is the student using information from another assignment? Does that assignment belong to them? You can request a CopyLeaks report from other instructors to see the source of the quoted assignment. Remember, only 20% of an old assignment may be re-purposed for a second course.
4. If an AI percentage is detected, does the material submitted effectively reflect the expectations and theme of the assignment, and are the sources recent and credible?

CSU Global does not make a practice of penalizing students solely based on the results of a high CopyLeaks score. For example, if the course contains annotated bibliographies, forms, research surveys, drafting assignments, or assignments with template language expected to be used in submissions, then the CopyLeaks score will be much higher than the 30% threshold. It should also be noted that the score of 30% is not stated in our Academic Integrity policy but is the threshold established by CSU Global to evaluate a student’s use of sources.

Context is important. If the concerning issues occur early on in a low-level course or in Discussion threads, then, in most instances, they are best treated as teachable moments, and our faculty should feel fully empowered to handle them. Faculty may immediately communicate to the student if a rewrite is required (with no penalty for a first offense) and/or by doing some of the following:

• Identifying what the student needs to correct
• Explaining how to make the correction
• Explaining why proper citation is important

IMPORTANT NOTE: The resources listed below can be recommended to students.

• CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA, Introduction and Why Cite?
• CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA, In-Text Citations
• CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Resources
• CSU-Global Writing Center Submitting Assignments
• CSU-Global Writing Center Interpreting Originality Reports

Portfolio Projects and High Similarity Scores

Plagiarism concerns with Portfolio assignments should be treated as any other concerns. Our plagiarism policy does not state that Portfolio assignments will be treated differently.

• If the concerns are minor, they can be addressed in the grading rubric and the assignment can be graded as is.
• If the concerns are more egregious then a “1” should be placed in the grade book and an IN-Plagiarism or IN-AI Plagiarism alert should be submitted.
• If an instructor is waiting for an alert to be processed and final grades are due, the grade can be submitted as is. If the student is granted a resubmission then the work can be graded and a grade change form submitted.

Ensure you have utilized the funnel function appropriately to ascertain the similarity score before implementing the above grading strategies.

• When reviewing the AI CopyLeaks score please remember that action cannot be taken based on the score alone. This also applies to the use of outside AI detection tools. If the AI score is high then instructors should review the work to confirm it aligns with the requirements, verify if there are in-text citations, and that citations align with sources. If you have questions or need further clarification, submit a IN-Student AI Alert in the Faculty Portal.

Ask & Alert!

We encourage you to contact the Writing Center or your Program Manager if you are unsure about CopyLeaks filtering, high similarity scores, and allowing resubmissions of assignments. Then, please work with the student to understand plagiarism.