A campus of The California State University

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   Office of the Academic Senate •  One Washington Square •  San Jose, California 95192-0024 • 408-924-2440   •   Fax: 408-924-2451

  S02-4

Note:  This policy was modified by the Academic Senate Chair, James Brent, on January 23, 2003.  The numbering system used was not in sync with the numbering system used in the original policy F88-10.  The Chair modified the numbers to coincide with the original policy.

At its meeting of April 22, 2002, the Academic Senate passed the following Policy Recommendation presented by Ken Nuger for the Instruction and Student Affairs Committee.

POLICY RECOMMENDATION

REVISING PLAGIARISM POLICY

Whereas,       the internet has dramatically increased the opportunities for students to collect, copy and paste resources together into course assignments without personally writing the assignment or providing appropriate attribution to the sources they use, and

Whereas,       some students have been given insufficient previous guidance on how to conduct research and craft unplagiarized papers and

Whereas,       documented and reported cases of plagiarism have increased from six in 1998, to eight in 1999, to eleven in 2000 and to 69 in 2001, and

Whereas,       commercial plagiarism detection services now exist to aid educators' attempts to detect and deter plagiarism, and

Whereas,       plagiarism detection services may choose to use submitted material for purposes other than those for which the material was originally submitted and,

Whereas,       San Jose State University has no established policy for contracting with plagiarism detection services, therefore be it

Resolved that S98-1 and F88-10 be amended as follows:

UNIVERSITY POLICY S02-4

Recycling Papers, Defining and Detecting Plagiarism

2.0       RECYCLING PAPERS, DEFINING AND DETECTING PLAGIARISM

2.1       Ensuring Student Privacy and Rights:  University Contractual Requirements with Plagiarism Detection Services

2.2       Any plagiarism detection service with which San José State University contracts must ensure

            the anonymity of all submitted work to third parties.

2.3       Except for the stated purpose of storing submitted work in a database and using the database solely for the intended purpose of detecting plagiarism, any plagiarism detection service with which San José State University contracts shall agree that to the fullest extent possible, ownership rights of all submitted work shall remain with the work's author and not with the plagiarism detection service.

2.4       Notification of S02-4 to the university community.

2.4.1    The text of S02-4 shall be published in the San José State University's catalog, student handbook and all university class schedules.

2.5       Student Notification

2.5.1    Future publications of the course catalog and schedule of classes shall incorporate a statement indicating that the university or its faculty may subscribe to and use plagiarism detection services.

ACTION BY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT: