Module 1: Violations of the Graduate Honor Code

June 8, 2023 - Burrus Hall in the early summer. (Photo by Peter Means/Virginia Tech)

Welcome to Module 1 of this learning series! This module explores elements of the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor Code, including the four types of Graduate Honor Code violations.

After completing this module, you should be able to:

Explain the four types of violations of Virginia Tech's Graduate Honor Code.
Identify the situations in which Virginia Tech’s Graduate Honor Code requires graduate students to exercise honesty and ethical behavior.
Identify examples of violations of Virginia Tech’s Graduate Honor Code.

The Virginia Tech Graduate Honor Code

Virginia Tech’s Graduate Honor Code (GHC) is enforced by the Graduate Honor System (GHS). The GHC “establishes a standard of academic integrity and requires that all graduate students exercise honesty and ethical behavior in all their academic pursuits at Virginia Tech” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, n.d.).

The GHC will apply to all the intellectual work you do as a graduate student (e.g., study, coursework, research, mentoring, and teaching.)

It is your responsibility as a graduate student to know what defines ethical behavior at Virginia Tech and to practice that behavior. These modules are designed to help you start and continue learning and to provide resources for where you can read more and ask questions. Please come back to these modules at any time! You may also want to talk to your advisor, your instructors, representatives of the Graduate Honor System, or employees in the Graduate School.

Violations of the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor Code

The Virginia Tech GHC defines cheating as “the giving or receiving of any unauthorized aid, assistance, or unfair advantage in any form of academic work” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 1). This definition applies to the products of all forms of academic work and projects: presentations, quizzes, tests, papers, and graduate-level exams (e.g., thesis, dissertation).

It’s important to know that giving unauthorized assistance is as serious as seeking it.

Examples of Cheating

Sharing or using unauthorized information in any form, including but not limited to:

Printed or electronic books, journals, articles, or manuscripts
Websites
Social media
Email messages
Text messages
Others’ completed assignments, projects, quizzes, or exams

Strategies to Avoid Cheating

Treat each assignment as an opportunity to learn, rather than a task to finish.
Manage your time effectively so that you can take the time needed to complete assignments on your own.
Read assignment instructions carefully to determine which resources are allowed and which ones are unauthorized / prohibited, and follow such instructions. When in doubt, verify with your instructor.
If you need help with an assignment, contact your instructor to seek authorization.
Do not talk about, leave unattended, or let others access your finished assignments, quizzes, or exams before everyone has turned in their own.

Plagiarism is a specific form of cheating, defined in the Virginia Tech GHC as “the copying of the language, structure, idea, and/or thoughts of another and claiming or attempting to imply that it is one's own original work. It also includes the omitting of quotation marks when references are copied directly, improper paraphrasing, . . . or inadequate referencing of sources” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 2).

It’s important to know that copying can be plagiarism. If you copy someone else’s text word for word, you MUST provide a citation and enclose the text in quotation marks.

Plagiarism can apply to any amount of someone else’s work: a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire section of their work.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is taking a piece of someone else’s written work (like an article, a paragraph, or a book chapter) and writing it in different words and with a different sentence structure while keeping the same meaning.

When paraphrasing someone else’s work, you must change both their wording and sentence structure, and you must include a citation of their work (Virginia Tech Graduate Honor System Leadership Team, 2000).

Examples of Plagiarism

Plagiarism can involve numerous types of intellectual property, including but not limited to:

Writing
Drawings, illustrations, paintings
Designs
Photos
Graphics, charts, tables
Primary data
Derived equations
Computer programs
Verbal communication of ideas

The Constitution of the Graduate Honor System includes numerous examples of plagiarism, as well as correct uses of sources, in its Appendix.

Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism

When taking notes, mark someone else’s words clearly, such as with large quotation marks.
Allow enough time to complete your assignments and proof-read them, looking for proper citations (in Module 3, we will provide more information about citations.)
When you use information from other sources (e.g., books, articles), record relevant documentation like titles, authors, and URLs in your notes.
Reference the Graduate School’s online document Avoiding plagiarism: A guide for graduate students at Virginia Tech.

Falsification violations occur when students “falsify, orally, in writing, or via electronic media, any circumstance relevant to their academic work” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 2).

Examples of Falsification

The Constitution of the GHS provides these examples of falsification and violations of the GHC:

Forgery of others’ signatures (signing someone else’s name)
Tampering with official records or documents
Fraudulently adding or deleting information on academic documents
Fraudulently changing an examination or testing period or due date of an assignments
Unauthorized access of someone else’s computer account or files
Purposefully assigning an incorrect grade
Neglecting to properly grade submitted material
Improperly influencing the results of course evaluations
Knowingly including false data or results in any paper or report submitted for a grade, as a degree requirement, or for publication.

Academic sabotage is “purposeful vandalism directed against any academic endeavor or equipment” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 2).

Examples of Acamemic Sabotage

The Constitution of the GHS provides these examples of academic sabotage and violations of the GHC:

Destruction / theft of written material, laboratory or field experiments, equipment used in teaching or research, or computer files or programs.
“Deliberately crashing or attempting to crash a computer system or the use of files intended to cause or actually causing computer systems to behave atypically, thereby impeding another person's or group's efforts” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 2).
- Specifically, “knowingly infecting any system with a virus, worm, time bomb, trap door, Trojan horse, or any other kind of invasive program shall be considered a serious violation” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 2).

AI and the Virginia Tech Graduate Honor Code

The GHC is “founded on the concept of honesty with respect to the intellectual efforts of oneself and others” (Virginia Tech Graduate School, 2025, p. 1).

The Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence Framework for Virginia Tech includes 7 core principles of responsible and ethical AI use.

Principle 3, as shown in the introduction of this activity, reminds us that the ideas and content derived from AI are not our own, and Principle 4 centers on the need for transparency in our use of AI for making decisions, collecting data, writing papers, and other intellectual pursuits.

While content from AI that informs our own thoughts and writing is not attributable to a specific person, we can’t claim it as our own. A significant part of transparency is citing our use of AI when appropriate.

Module 2 provides more insight into citations, including citations of AI.