Ethics and Academic and Research Integrity

Equity and Human Rights

The University promotes a safe, respectful and supportive learning, working, and living environment. University policies prohibit discrimination, harassment, and sexualized violence. We understand that such behaviours can undermine student success. The Equity and Human Rights office (EQHR) is a resource for all Uvic community members, including students. EQHR provides education, information, assistance and advice in aid of building and supporting an inclusive and respectful campus. When issues and concerns arise, EQHR assists those involved through the range of support and resolution options available under the Sexualized Violence Prevention and Response policy and Discrimination and Harassment policy. EQHR staff are available by appointment—contact information and resources can be found at uvic.ca/equity.

The Department of Chemistry expects everyone participating in university activities in the department to model respectful behaviour and abide by applicable university policies. For more information please contact chemeqhr@uvic.ca or see the departmental secretary in person at Elliott 302, who will help you or direct you to the appropriate person.

Academic and Research Integrity

Students are responsible for adhering to the Academic Integrity Policy for graduate students. This covers such things as plagiarism, cheating on exams and fabricating data. Plagiarism is misrepresenting the ideas or words of others as your own, and is considered a serious offense. Please make sure you understand what exactly is meant by this, since the standard may be different from what you are used to. There is helpful information on this on the University website. Cases of plagiarism can be factors in withdrawing a student from their degree.

Your research is likely funded at least in part by one of Canada's federal funding agencies (NSERC, SSHRC or CIHR) and these agencies have a common policy on Responsible Conduct of Research. This covers the obvious things such as falsifying data, but also covers such things as keeping complete and accurate records of your experiments so that they can be verified by others. Your messy lab book may be illegal! The policy mainly covers the procedures to follow if the rules are broken, because the agencies require the funded institutions to have specific internal policies, in this case UVic's Policy on Scholarly Integrity.