Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.
- Sophocles (497/496 BC - 406/405 BC)

Academic dishonesty is a form of misconduct. At the University of the Philippines, the sanctions for misconduct can be exceedingly severe (including suspension and expulsion); see the attached policy documents for details. In addition, the FIC for your course may fail you not only for the activity for which you committed the act of academic dishonesty, but even for the entire course.


Cheating on an exam and plagiarizing someone else's work are well-known examples of academic dishonesty. But some activities that may seem harmless are actually forms of academic dishonesty, including the following (taken from Quintos, 2017):

  • Noticing someone else cheating in an exam, quiz or exercise and not reporting it. 
  • Listing unread sources in a paper’s bibliography.
  • Reading condensed/abridged versions of a novel, play, etc. or watching a movie based on the book rather than reading the assigned full-length version (unless explicitly directed by your instructor to do so).
  • Going  to  Wikipedia.com  or  some  other  site  to read the summary of a book  or a  movie you are supposed to read or watch and make a review of (unless explicitly directed by your instructor to do so).
  • Asking and/or taking ideas from others and using them without giving credit.
  • Turning in the same paper in two different classes without first securing permission from your instructors to do so.
  • Working with a group on an assignment that was assigned as individual work.

Other examples of misconduct can be found in the UP System's Acceptable Use Policy for IT services. These include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Copying a computer file that contains another person's work and submitting it for one's own credit;
  • Copying a computer file that contains another person's work and using it as a model for one's own work;
  • Collaborating on a work, sharing the computer files and submitting the shared file, ora modification thereof, as one's individual work, when the work is supposed to be done individually; and
  • Communicating with another person on-line during the conduct of an examination.

See also