International Student Services

School Policies

Plagiarism is a common, yet severe violation against copyright laws at college.

Plagiarism

School in the Unites States may be very different from home. The issues most students run into that is different from their home country deals with academic integrity while here.

Please become familiar with plagiarism and what that means in the United States.

What Is Plagiarism?

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to "plagiarize" means:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
to use (another's production) without crediting the source
to commit literary theft
to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Copy & Paste is considered plagiarism; at post-secondary institution, you will be required to evaluate and express ideas in your own way.

Plagiarism can result in severe punishment such as probation or suspension.

Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA)

What is FERPA?

FERPA is a federal law designed to protect the privacy of education records, to establish the right of students to inspect and review their education records, and to provide guidelines for the correction of inaccurate and misleading data through informal and formal hearings. It is enforced by the Family Policy Compliance Office at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C.

To understand more about FERPA.

If you want a family or friend to have access to your educational records you can fill this form.

Academic Standards

https://www.occc.edu/acs/tips/

Repeated Courses

Students have the option of repeating previously completed coursework within the following guidelines:

A student may repeat up to four (4) courses, totaling no more than 18 credit hours, in which grades of “D” or “F” were originally earned, and petition to have only the second grade used in the calculation of the retention/graduation grade point average.
Once a petition is submitted, the first four courses of repeated coursework will count in the sequence in which those courses were repeated.
In the event such a petition is presented for a course that is repeated more than once, all grades earned with the exception of the first will be used to calculate the retention/graduation grade point average.
Repeated grades that are forgiven will continue to appear on the official college transcript, but will be noted with an * as forgiven.
Although the repeat provision may be an option for coursework completed prior to the conferral of a degree, a pre-existing graduation GPA will not be adjusted.