TAs, Tutors, and Student Employees

If you are working as a paid student employee, then you have the same obligations as any other University employee under the academic honesty policy. You must follow all of the guidelines listed on the staff page whenever you are acting in your role as an employee.

Student employees in academic roles also need to review the relevant sections below for teaching assistants and tutors.

Tutors and Other Academic Support Staff

In addition to following the staff guidelines, your work as a tutor also requires that you:

  • Tutor students in ways that cause the students to create their own work; you should not create content for students.
    • For example, if a student is struggling with an assigned problem, ask the student questions that will help the student understand how to tackle the problem, rather than directly showing the student how to solve the problem.
  • Do not share material from your own coursework with the students you tutor. Instead, you should work with the materials that their instructors have given them.*

*This will prevent any blurring of your roles as tutor and student, particularly since the academic honesty policy prohibits you from sharing instructor-produced course materials with anyone not enrolled in the same course at the same time.

Teaching Assistants and Other Course Staff

In addition to following the guidelines outlined on the staff page, teaching assistants, workshop leaders, and other course staff must monitor student work for academic dishonesty and report all suspected academic dishonesty to the course instructor.

In order to know what counts as academic honesty violation, you must learn both the rules set by the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering (AS&E) Academic Honesty Policy and the course-specific rules set by the course instructor.

You should also review the policy requirements for instructors so you can differentiate your own role from that of the instructor. Important information from the requirements is highlighted below.

Instructors are required to:

  • Include an academic honesty statement on the syllabus or course website and call attention to the course-specific information in class during the first two weeks of the course.
  • Have all students copy and sign this honor pledge on all examinations: “I affirm that I will not give or receive any unauthorized help on this exam, and that all work will be my own.”
  • Report all suspected academic honesty violations to the Board on Academic Honesty and treat cases confidentially.
  • Model integrity in their own practices and educate students about disciplinary standards.

Teaching assistants are required to:

  • Report suspected academic honesty policy violations to the course instructor.
  • Provide documentation of suspected academic honesty violation to the course instructor.
  • Treat suspected violations confidentially (only discuss with the course instructor and academic honesty staff).

Teaching assistants may be asked to:

  • Educate students about academic honesty.
  • Proctor exams (see the proctoring guidelines).
  • Do other relevant teaching-related tasks.

Teaching assistants may not:

  • Meet with students about suspected academic honesty violations.
  • Submit academic honesty cases to the Board on Academic Honesty.
  • Use any process other than the Board on Academic Honesty process for suspected violations.

*If your instructor is insisting on any of these things, please contact the academic honesty liaison.

Teaching assistants should know:

  • Intent does not matter in the AS&E policy. Students are responsible when they violate the policy even if they didn’t know they were violating the rules at the time.
  • That they should not solve problems for students. Instead, TAs should ask questions that will cause the students to work through the steps of solving a problem on their own.
  • The academic honesty rules set by their instructor before a test or other assessment.
  • Students experience distress around academic honesty cases; don’t hesitate to file a CARE report, contact the academic honesty liaison, or, if the student is in danger of self-harm, call .
  • Academic honesty violations are not directed at the teaching staff of a course; they are typically a symptom of something else going wrong for the student.

Teaching assistants should report to the instructor:

  • Test cheating
  • Students who fake excuses to gain academic advantage
  • Group work misconduct
  • Plagiarism (missing, incorrect, and/or fake citations)
  • Identical work, in part or in whole
  • Work that is off-topic
  • Work that changes style/ability level internally
  • Work that is substantively different from previous work by student

Types of academic honesty policy violations:

  • Receiving, using, or having access to unauthorized aid
  • Giving unauthorized aid
  • Plagiarism
  • Misconduct in group projects
  • Fabrication and falsification
  • Denying others access to information or material
  • Unauthorized recording, distribution, or publication of course‐related materials
  • Misuse of a student’s username and password
  • Impeding the investigation or conduct of any Board on Academic Honesty matter