Academic integrity policies and laws

The Policies and Laws of Academic Integrity at the Professional Opinion Training Center

The Professional Opinion Training Center believes that academic integrity is an essential part of the personal and intellectual development of the trainee, and that promoting awareness of issues related to academic integrity through the promotion of an atmosphere of trust, honesty, and high ethical standards plays a leading role in the progress and prosperity of society.

Forms of Violation of Academic Integrity Laws

• Cheating: This is the transfer of the work of others and the unauthorized use of any information and training materials in academic exams or other tasks assigned to trainees.
• Plagiarism and Intellectual Theft: This is the use of the work of others as if it were the work of the person, without referring to the original owner of the work.
• Exploitation of Cooperation: A trainee relies on another trainee within his group to complete an assignment or joint work, or exploits another trainee to complete individual assignments.
• Forgery and Forgery: The trainee’s action of changing or falsifying the information available to him in an exam or academic assignment, or bringing a forged medical certificate in order to skip attendance.
• **Receiving any help in exams or providing information to another trainee or bringing external papers in the exam and obtaining information that was not provided by the test developers.
• **Obtaining or providing unauthorized assistance in exams, or falsifying information to support laboratory results or any other academic work.
• Impersonation of another: The trainee claims the status of another person in the classroom, or in an exam or examination, or in any type of academic assignment. In this case, the person who impersonates another person is punished, as well as the trainee who motivated the impersonation.

Mechanisms for Preventing Cheating

• Issuing multiple test forms from a question bank.
• The test should be in the form of (choices) to prevent copying and pasting.
• The specified time for the test should be limited to a suitable time for the test pattern, where the time for each question does not exceed (60 seconds).
• Hiding all the contents of the course at the time of the test in a technical way to prevent the student from browsing it during the test.
• Using the Safe Exam Browser (SEB) secure browser; This program converts any device to a secure workstation with a browser that prevents the trainee from navigating or controlling his device, including opening files, browsers, or even disconnecting the internet from the trainee’s device. Only when the test is submitted can the trainee use his device normally as the test is displayed on a screen and is not allowed to be changed until after the test is submitted and disables the copy and paste and screen sharing features.

Mechanisms for Preventing Identity Theft

• When the trainee enters the website, the trainee enters (username, password).
• A virtual class is held and the camera is turned on during the test time and the supervisor is present to verify the identity of the student.
• The supervisor requests the trainee to show (identity, residence) to verify the identity of the trainee.

Punishment Policy

• In the event that the student is caught cheating during the test or in the event of identity theft by another person performing the test, the following procedures will be taken:

  • Drafting a detailed report of the violation with the necessary evidence and then presenting it to the supervisor, who in turn presents it to the specialists in order to issue the necessary sanctions.
  • Drafting a violation for the violating trainee according to the results of the report prepared by the specialists and it will be according to the sanctions explained in the policies and laws of academic integrity.

• The penalties for violating trainees include the following:

  • Expulsion of the trainee from the training course.
  • Exclusion for a later course.
  • Non-refund of paid fees.

• In the event of fraud or manipulation of academic content “academic theft”:

  • Drafting a detailed report of the violation with the necessary evidence and then presenting it to the specialists in order to issue the necessary penalty against him.

• The penalties for violators include the following:

  • Expulsion of the violator from the training course.
  • Non-acceptance of the trainee for a similar training course for a period of not less than 3 years.
  • Refusal to refund the paid fees.
  • Compensation in case of benefiting from the training package and selling it to any other party.
  • Transferring the violating trainee to the competent authorities.

The Purpose of These Policies

These policies and laws are designed to:

• Promote academic integrity in all aspects of the training process.
• Create a culture of trust, honesty, and ethical behavior among trainees, trainers, and staff.