Cheating and Plagiarism Prevention and Intervention Procedure

Cheating is defined as any attempt to give or obtain unauthorized assistance in a formal academic exercise 
(the use of unauthorized materials during a quiz, test, examination etc., including using notes copied from 
other students or use of information from print, electronic devices or other sources).

Plagiarism is a form of cheating that is defined as the use of the thoughts or ideas of someone else by a 
student without crediting the source. Use of part or all of any other person’s book, essay, magazine article, chart, drawing, diagram or any other piece of work in an assignment without proper acknowledgement is plagiarizing. Submitting an assignment written by anyone else or presenting information taken from the 
internet as one’s own is plagiarizing.

Schools must provide students with information about what constitutes cheating and plagiarism, and are 
encouraged to include activities and curricular strategies to minimize the incidence of cheating and 
plagiarism. 
Prevention strategies may include but are not limited to

• inclusion in codes of conduct in student agendas
• project guidelines and course outlines informing students and parents of the nature of plagiarism, strategies to avoid plagiarism and consequences
• plagiarism posters in rooms
• library orientation and class presentations using resources explaining forms of plagiarism, copyright, note taking, and proper methods of citing sources
• electronic teacher resources archived in Teacher Community
• varying assignments from year to year
• requiring creativity and higher-order thinking
• use of class time for the writing process
• wherever possible, create products for evaluation in the presence of a teacher
• increased opportunities to include assessment for and as learning
• chunking of assignments (subdividing into smaller parts)
• teacher conferences as checks for understanding, feedback and encouragement in process before submission
• submission of rough work
• research analysis and testing midway through projects
• annotated bibliography (early in process and final product)
• a metacognitive essay or presentation on the student’s research process and/or 
• electronic learning objects to address plagiarism

A variety of plagiarism identification methods may be used by schools including; teacher identification based 
on monitoring during the development process, internet searches to identify sources of unusual wording or 
phrases in student work and/or third party plagiarism tracking software.

Schools that use third party plagiarism tracking software must identify it as optional for students, with the 
alternative being for the student to submit detailed process work

To address freedom of information, schools opting to use third party plagiarism detection software must establish a standard Privacy of Information agreement with that company.

4.1 LETTER OF AGREEMENT:
The Durham District School Board has authorized its schools to retain software company for the purpose of investigating the originality of student assignments. As you are aware, the Board is subject to the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

In order to ensure the Board’s obligations under the Act are met, we ask that you confirm your agreement to comply with the following requirements, to which the Board is subject, when handling personal information (as defined by the Act) pursuant to a retainer from one or more of the Board’s schools:

1. software company will collect only personal information necessary to administer the services retained by the school.
2. software company will only use or disclose personal information for purposes consistent with the 
   purposes for its collection or as otherwise permitted by law and authorized by the Board.
3. software company will take all reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized access, loss or theft of 
   personal information. software company will notify the Board immediately of any such event.
4. Upon request of the Board, software company will return or destroy any personalinformation maintained in its database.
5. software company will notify the Board of any access request or request for correction made for personal information collected by software company on behalf of the Board.
6. software company will notify the Board of any acquisition by another company or selling of assets prior to any disclosure of personal information.

Please confirm your agreement to comply with these requirements by returning a signed copy of this letter.

I, ________________________, on behalf of software company acknowledge the legal requirements 
imposed on the Durham District School Board and agree on behalf of the software company that the 
company will comply with the requirements identified above when handling personal information on behalf of the Board. I understand that failure to do so may result in a discontinuance of the company’s services by the Board.
_______________________________________
Signature

To further address freedom of information, schools opting to use third party plagiarism detection software must provide students with a written notice and permission form.

5.1 NOTICE TO STUDENTS:
Third party plagiarism tracking software requires students to submit certain information through its 
website in order to administer the service including the student’s name, a contact e-mail address, 
and the student’s class assignment. Upon completion of the class, the software company deletes the 
student name and e-mail address. However, student assignments may be maintained in the 
database at the request of the school in order to permit the software company to use the 
assignments as a comparator for future classes. 
The Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) requires that 
students be notified of: (a) the purpose for collecting personal information, (b) the statutory 
authority for the collection, and (c) the title, business address and telephone number for an 
individual who may answer questions about the collection.

5.2 All students submitting work to a third party plagiarism tracking software company will be provided 
with the following written notice and permission form.

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s) and Student:

In order to ensure that the work you submit for evaluation is original, you will be required to submit selected assignments to the school’s service provider through its website. The company’s detection software will alert the classroom teacher of assignments which appear to contain other source material. Where appropriate, the teacher will follow up with you to determine whether the information has been obtained from another source and whether the source material is appropriately recognized in the assignment. An academic penalty and/or additional school consequence may be applied if a teacher determines that plagiarism has taken place.

The software company’s website will require you to submit your name and an e-mail address. This will allow your teacher to identify who has submitted an assignment for the purposes of evaluation, and will ensure the originality of the work assignment. This will also permit the software company to send you a copy of the originality report for your assignment, or to send to you the informationabout any changes to your account information or password. Your name and e-mail address are not maintained for any other reason. 

Assignments will be scanned as noted above. Both your name and e-mail address will be deleted from the software company’s files after completion of the class. A copy of each student assignment will be kept on file for the purposes of comparing the assignment to future assignments submitted to schools in the Board should an instance of potential plagiarism be detected. Should such an event occur, you may be contacted by the school as part of its investigation into an instance of potential plagiarism. This information is collected under s.264 of the Education Act and Regulation 298, s.20.

Questions with respect to the collection of information for third party plagiarism tracking software may be referred to the Board’s Freedom of Information Coordinator at the following address:

Lou Vavougios, Superintendent of Education, Employee Relations
Durham District School Board, 400 Taunton Road East, Whitby, ON L1R 2K6

Parental/Guardian Permission Form

I acknowledge that I have read and understand the process and requirements of my child’s work being submitted to a third party plagiarism tracking software company and give my permission for my child’s work (name)_______________________________ to be submitted to this company.

Parent/Guardian Signature:______________________________ Date: ___________

For incidents where a student is found to be plagiarizing, depending on the student’s grade level, maturity 
and individual circumstance combined with the degree of intent, number and/or frequency of the incidents, 
consequences and interventions may include:

• mandatory plagiarism education session(s)
• re-submission with proper citation
• repeat of the assignment and/or that part of the assignment that is plagiarized
• substitution of an alternate and equivalent assignment
• rewriting with staff monitoring
• mark reduction
• mark of zero
• administrative and parent involvement
• increased monitoring of future assignments
• detentions and/or suspension

Academic and behavioral consequences for academic dishonesty shall be consistent across the Board and 
clearly outlined in student agendas