The UCF History Department is committed to introducing graduate students to accepted standards of professional ethics and conduct. The History Department requires students to understand the standards of academic conduct as defined by the university and the American Historical Association.
It is the responsibility of all students to familiarize themselves with UCF-5.008 Rules of Conduct, the UCF Golden Rule Student Handbook, and the Graduate Student Handbook.
It is the responsibility of all students to know the definitions, terms and behaviors that define academic misconduct in the Rules of Conduct pertaining to cheating, plagiarism, and falsifying or misrepresenting your academic work.
Plagiarism is a specific type of cheating that involves purposeful or inadvertent use of someone else’s material passed off as your own. One can also self-plagiarize by using the same or substantially similar assignments more than once in a single course or in different courses. In this electronic age we require students to understand the variety of ways in which a well-meaning effort to complete an assignment can result in a charge of plagiarism. Please consult the UCF Writing Center’s Plagiarism Handout to learn the ways in which the university recognizes plagiarism and how to avoid it. If you are still uncertain, be sure to consult with your professors to know what would be regarded as plagiarism in each of the classes you are enrolled.
The Rules of Conduct also include public conduct such as disruptive and harmful behaviors that interrupt the learning environment of the classroom. In addition to the classroom and online learning environments, the Rules of Conduct will be enforced outside of campus during University Sponsored and Related Activities which include service learning opportunities, internships and other related events.
The History Department and its faculty are committed to creating a learning environment that is free from any academic misconduct. When appropriate, the History Department and its faculty will address incidents of misconduct through the policies of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
The College of Graduate Studies has produced a Graduate Student Handbook that addresses the Rights and Responsibilities of graduate students who conduct original research, engage the public through partnering institutions in the name of the department and university or represent their careers as UCF graduate students at scholarly talks, meetings and other continuing educational programs. The history department expects students to understand the College of Graduate Studies’ expectations of student conduct, some of which are consistent with the Rules of Conduct and The Golden Rule and others which are distinct to the graduate student experience.
In addition to university wide policies regarding student conduct, the History Department recommends that students familiarize themselves with ethical and professional standards of the discipline of history. The American Historical Association has produced a document titled “Statement on the Standards of Professional Conduct” that addresses appropriate conduct for the study, research and dissemination of history. Since graduate students in the History Department produce original research, and work as interns, graduate assistants, research assistants and in the department’s Public History Program, the department requires that students familiarize themselves with the AHA’s “Statement on the Standards of Professional Conduct” specifically sections titled “Shared Values of Historians,” “Scholarship,” “Teaching,” and “History in the Public Realm.”