Thesis/Project:
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Plagiarism Policy and Procedures
for Graduate Theses and Projects, CSUSB

Plagiarism Subcommittee of the Graduate Program Committee (GPC)
(Approved by the Graduate Council, May 2007)

Preamble
In recognition of the importance of the integrity of the thesis and master’s project, the Graduate Program Coordinators agree that students’ final products will be evaluated formally for plagiarism.

Policy and Procedure
Graduate student theses and master’s projects will be evaluated by a plagiarism program (PP) authorized by the GPC, hereafter referred to as PP [1]. This evaluation will be done at the time of the first formatting review (fifth week of the quarter). At the discretion of the Graduate Dean, an additional, follow-up PP review may be conducted subsequent to the review conducted in conjunction with the first formatting deadline.

The first evaluation can be conducted and documented in one of these two ways:
  1. Students submit an electronic copy of their Thesis/Project in any of the approved formats [2] to the Graduate Studies office at the time of their first formatting review. The graduate office will conduct the evaluation using the approved PP.


    2. OR

  2. Students submit hard copy output from the PP as part of the first formatting review. In this case, the Thesis/Project Chair will authorize that the PP output submitted with the formatting review represents the Thesis/Project hard copy being submitted to the Graduate Studies office. The electronic copy of the Thesis/Project submitted to the PP will be made available to the Graduate Dean upon request.
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"Trigger Point" for Evaluation
Any Thesis/Project PP output that reveals substantial overlap [3] with other sources will be reviewed, either by the Graduate Dean or by the Thesis/Project Chair with the student’s committee, for the nature of the achieved overlap.

Procedure if the Thesis/Project has been reviewed by the Graduate Dean.
If, in the Graduate Dean’s opinion, there is substantial overlap with other sources, the Graduate Dean will inform the Thesis/Project Chair, who shall meet with the student’s committee to discuss action and possible sanctions. The Graduate Dean will also inform the Department Chair and College Dean of the substantial overlap.


Procedure if substantial overlap has been determined by the Thesis/Project Chair.
If the PP output reveals substantial overlap with other sources, the Thesis/Project Chair will inform the Thesis/Project Committee of the overlap indicated by the PP output. If the Thesis/Project Chair determines the overlap is an instance of plagiarism, the Thesis/Project Chair shall meet with the student’s committee to discuss action and possible sanctions; the Thesis/Project Chair will forward the PP output to the Graduate Dean.


Actions and Sanctions
If the committee determines that the student has plagiarized material, the committee will recommend appropriate actions, up to and including dismissal from the university. In some cases, the recommended action may be a rewrite of the Thesis/Project or portions deemed plagiarized; if the plagiarism is believed to be flagrant and intentional, the sanction may result in dismissal from the University. Sanctions recommended by the Thesis/Project Committee or Graduate Dean will be consistent with those described within FAM 820 and the Code of Student Conduct, §41301 (see current Bulletin).

Any decisions regarding the outcome of the committee’s discussions will be communicated in writing to the program coordinator, department Chair, and the Graduate Dean. A memorandum will be placed in a student’s file regarding the plagiarism and the decision.


Notes.
  1. Currently, the approved Plagiarism Program (PP) for the Office of Graduate Studies is Turnitin.com.
  2. Currently, the Office of Graduate Studies accepts the electronic copy in PDF, MS Word, HTML, and plain text formats.
  3. Substantial overlap shall be dependent on the PP and the judgment of the Thesis/Project Committee. In the event of Turnitin.com as the PP, a trigger point of 25% cumulative overlap and/or a single source overlap of 9% is suggested.
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