Rules and regulations - Plagiarism and fraud

Article 12.1 Academic violations  |  Article 12.3 Sanctions

A violation is the commission of any act intended to deceive, related to academic performance during an evaluation or related to the success of a requirement for an academic activity or any attempt to commit or participate in such acts.

Without limiting the generality of the preceding paragraph, the following are considered violations:

a) Total or partial use, be it literal or disguised, of a text written by another person with the attempt to portray it as one’s own work or failure to credit the author;

b) submission, for evaluation purposes of work that was written or done fully or partly by another person;

c) submission of the same work for two different courses, without prior written authorization;

d) before an examination, procuring the questions or answers to the examination or using these questions or answers while preparing for or taking an examination;

e) during an examination, possession or use of any documents, materials or unauthorized instruments, or solicitation or obtaining of any authorized help;

f) substitution of persons during an examination or work subject to evaluation;

g) invention of facts or falsification of research data in work subject to evaluation, particularly a thesis, guided work, or internship or research report;

h) modification of the results of an evaluation or of any document included therein, and obtaining an undeserved evaluation;

i) falsification of a document or use of a false document.

The following sanctions may be imposed in case of a violation of the regulation:

a) Warning: a note is placed in the student’s file with no immediate consequence;

b) The student receives a grade of zero for the work or examination in which a violation was committed, but does not automatically fail the course;

c) Failure of the course: the student receives a grade of E for the course in which a violation was committed. For doctoral students, article 13.2 c) applies under such circumstances;

d) Suspension: students may not enrol in courses or a program for a specified time period determined when the sanction is handed down. This period may not exceed two years;

e) Permanent expulsion: students who are expelled from HEC may not be admitted or readmitted to a program or enrolled in a course at HEC Montréal or obtain a grade, diploma or certificate from HEC Montréal.

Any other sanction deemed appropriate may be imposed.

In all cases, decisions on sanctions are inserted in the student’s file.