All ISLK community members, including students, should aim to embody and develop the IB learner profile attributes. In the context of academic integrity, one of the most important attributes is to be "principled" and all students participating in IB programmes are expected to act honestly, responsibly and ethically.

The ISLK Mission Statement says:

ISLK is committed to creating an environment of equal opportunities that promotes understanding and respect, with a continuous focus on social responsibility and democratic issues.

The aim of the school is to provide a quality curriculum, allowing students to realise their highest potential and gain a life-long love for learning.

Our mission is to educate all students in a supportive and challenging environment to become open-minded, life-long learners whose performance is a credit to themselves and society.

Students regardless of age, need support from the entire school community; specifically, from the programme coordinator and their teachers, but also from their parents/guardians. A supportive environment will encourage students to understand the importance of academic integrity and the role that this principle has in IB education.

When students understand the role that they have in the process of their own learning, they can also understand that they are responsible to ensure that their work and working methods must be honest, authentic, and genuine. This is the only way students can receive feedback that is fair and reflects their effort, knowledge, and skills.

Building and embracing an academic integrity culture requires a strategy at school level that combines policies and good academic practices. This includes clearly communicated expectations and modelling at an age-appropriate level so that all IB students understand:

their responsibility for producing authentic and genuine individual and group work

• that they must exhibit a balanced behaviour in group work, recognizing the collaboration of other team members and granting fair recognition to all members’ participation
• how to correctly acknowledge the work and ideas of others
• how to responsibly use information technology (critical thinking and information literacy)
• how to observe and adhere to ethical and honest practices
• how to act if they witness an incident that goes against the principle of academic integrity; for example, they should know who to refer to if they have doubts concerning academic integrity.

Definition of Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a guiding principle in education and a choice to act in a responsible way whereby others can have trust in us as individuals. It is the foundation for ethical decision-making and behaviour in the production of legitimate, authentic and honest school work.

This foundation of Academic integrity reflects the five fundamental principles: Honestly, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. These principles are embedded in the teaching and learning at ISLK.

Academic Integrity is demonstrated at age- appropriate levels through the following examples:

• You follow the teachers’ stated guidelines for all tasks, in and outside of school (for example, “you may not use a calculator for this task” or “work individually”)
• You give credit to/cite sources when using information, images, or other media that is not your own

Academic Misconduct is demonstrated through the following examples:

• You do not follow teacher instructions for a task (such as not completing your share of the work in group work)
• You plagiarise, intentionally or unintentionally, representing the ideas, words or work of another person as your own by not giving proper acknowledgment through correct referencing. (See MLA guidelines.) This includes the use of translated materials which are not acknowledged. Both of these instances are known as plagiarism.
• You cheat by, for example, copying from another student or writing information on your arm before a test.
• You present your own work to be assessed when it has already been submitted by you for another assignment. If the data and research is used for one piece of work it cannot be resubmitted as part of another assessment.
• You help another student in committing an act of academic misconduct. This includes when a student shares their work with another student so that they can see an example of what the work should be like. Any work shared as an example should be provided by the teacher, not by another student.

Use of Sources and Referencing Style

The school has developed a continuum to guide the ISLK community in how we use sources including the expectations for each year level, and distinguish between recommended and assessed the practices according to the Modern Language Association (MLA).

MLA is the system we use for referencing and citing sources, as well as formatting the layout of written work. When all of us use the same system it helps us create a consistent framework and an ethical culture when using sources for our work.

We why cite?

• To show respect for the work of others
• To distinguish your work form the work of others
• To make it possible for your readers to check the validity of your use of the work of others and to follow up on references
• To show and receive proper credit for the research process
• To secure the credibility and authority of your own knowledge and ideas
• To demonstrate the ability in drawing your own conclusion

When and how to cite?

As soon as you have used an external source such as written work, music, photos, videos, film, artistic pieces, art works, oral presentations, websites, you need to include a reference where it is used in your work and to include it in your bibliography. It does not matter whether you use a direct quote, if you paraphrase or summarise, this must be included. The important element is your reader can easily distinguish between your ideas and those of others. The reader should be able to locate the exact source. Therefore, you need to use citations, references and a bibliography.

• A citation is a few words in the text that indicates that you are about to reference someone else's ideas.
• A reference gives the full details of the sources cited in the work.
• A bibliography is a list of books and other sources that you have referred to in your work.

IB guidance when using AI tools

Students at ISLK have been informed of the following rules:

• If they use the text (or any other product) produced by an AI tool, be that copying or paraphrasing that text or modifying an image, they must clearly reference the AI tool in the body of their work and add it to the bibliography.
• The in-text citation should contain quotation marks using the MLA referencing style used by the school and the citation should also contain the prompt given to the AI toll and the date the AI generated the text. The same applies to any other material that the student has obtained from other categories of AI tools: for example, images.

The section above is quoted from the Academic Integrity policy, Appendix 6: Guidance on the use of artificial intelligence tools. By the IB Organization, published 2019, updated 2023.

Roles & Expectations

Prevention should always be a preferred strategy for the school, and maintaining a clear and open communication with students and their parents or legal guardians will help all parties understand what is required to adhere to the academic integrity policy. The objective should be that students assume their responsibilities and commit themselves to complete all their work honestly and without having unauthorised assistance, for example by a third party, and that parents and legal guardians understand and accept those expectations.

Educational Leadership Team (ELT)

The ELT at ISLK must ensure that all teachers have the same level of understanding of academic integrity as a first step to ensuring their engagement and commitment. The school will provide different training opportunities for the PYP and MYP to ensure a common approach to academic integrity. Differences in understanding could lead to inconsistencies in the teaching strategies and unwanted repercussions for the students. It is therefore important to conduct an evaluation when a new teacher joins the school and offer them sufficient training opportunities. This is an area that should be promoted as an integral part of the professional development of all teachers.

Previous resolved cases of academic misconduct should be communicated and used as examples when developing teacher training.

Teachers at ISLK are given guidance and support on when to take the necessary actions if confronted by a case of academic misconduct, otherwise the school’s goal of promoting an academic integrity culture can be negatively impacted.

Students

Students are expected to ensure that all of their work is true and genuine and without plagiarised content. Students are also expected to make principled choices amongst their friends and classmates, encouraging a culture of academic integrity within the whole of ISLK. Students will be guided through the process with student friendly guides and have different learning engagements to understand the important elements of academic integrity.

Parents/Guardians

Encourage the foundation for ethical decision-making when talking to students about their work. This includes reinforcing the importance of following teacher guidelines for tasks and giving credit to sources used. Parents will not do home learning for their children. The parent's role is to encourage students and provide a positive environment in which they can practise and reinforce their learning.

Teachers/Staff

Teachers and staff are responsible for clarifying the expectations for specific tasks and teaching the students how to fulfil the principle of academic integrity, as well as how to avoid academic misconduct. Activities at classroom level should be clearly defined with age-appropriate guidelines that reflect what the students have been taught with regard to academic integrity.

Within the different programs offered at ISLK, teachers and staff scaffold learning to reach the students on an age-appropriate level. In EY to PYP3, an emphasis is put on an appreciation of one’s own work, differentiating between one’s own and others’ work, as well as highlighting authors, illustrators, and other types of creators of materials used such as books and films. In PYP4-PYP6, students are introduced to the concept of the bibliography and different ways on how to responsibly use others’ work and ideas in their own production of work. In the MYP, students deepen this knowledge and are taught how to conduct research and to paraphrase and quote according to MLA standards. Though these skills, amongst others, are assessed in several of the subject groups, all teachers are responsible
for maintaining a rigorous standard in this regard.

For the whole system to work, it is essential that teachers and staff use this policy to guide the students and apply the rules and consequences for incidents of academic misconduct in a fair, transparent and consistent way. This will ensure a clear message for students. Furthermore, it is essential for staff members to communicate cases of academic misconduct with all students involved, their parents/guardians, their mentors/classroom teachers and, in some cases, the Learning Support Team or Educational Leadership.

Staff are expected to be role models in ethical use of sources. Staff are responsible for knowing and following the current copyright rules. Staff are encouraged to refer to the MLA Continuum document for further guidance.

Librarian

In collaboration with teachers and other members of staff, ensure that clear guidelines are established to guide age-appropriate responsibility related to academic integrity and MLA.

Misconduct Procedures

Teachers’ responsibility to make guidelines clear so students know what counts as academic misconduct and the potential consequences. In EY-PYP 3, teachers focus on building up knowledge and skills to avoid academic misconduct. In PYP 4 or above, it is important to issue an age-appropriate warning to the student and highlight the importance of academic integrity when academic misconduct occurs. Caveat: language learners, new students, young students.

If a student feels there was an error in the decision-making process regarding academic integrity, the student must take the following 3 steps as an academic appeal. Each step must be completed before moving onto the next step.

• Step 1 - Discuss any concern about your academic results with an appropriate member of staff that identified the misuse of academic Integrity.
• Step 2 - Inform the MYP coordinator about the situation and request a meeting to explain your concerns regarding the misuse of academic Integrity.
• Step 3 - Meeting with the Vice principal, MYP coordinator, subject teacher, student and parent to discuss misuse of academic Integrity and make a final decision on the request.