Grades & Academic Integrity | Student Handbook

Grades & Academic Integrity

Your transcript is built and housed at your home university. Grades for a course are determined by the instructor of the course. Your home university will determine the translation for a course grade from a teaching university that uses a different grading system using the Great Plains IDEA Grade Translation Matrix (PDF).

Incomplete Grades

An incomplete grade may be issued by the instructor of a course. If an incomplete grade is issued, you will work with the instructor, the teaching university campus coordinator, and your academic advisor to file an incomplete grade form. The incomplete form outlines the timeline and expectations for completion of the course. You are responsible for ensuring the completion of your course work.

Academic Integrity

Everyone within the Great Plains IDEA is responsible for and affected by the cooperative commitment to academic integrity. Academic integrity is defined as doing and taking credit for one’s own work.

Instructors are expected to use reasonably practical means of preventing and detecting academic dishonesty. Students are encouraged to share the responsibility for the academic integrity of the Great Plains IDEA by reporting incidents of academic dishonesty to the graduate administrator at their home institution. Any student found responsible for having engaged in academic dishonesty shall be subject to academic penalty and/or disciplinary action. Examples of academic dishonesty include (but are not limited to) cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized possession or disposition of academic materials, falsification, and facilitation of cases of academic dishonesty. In the case of academic dishonesty, the members of the consortium agree to the following procedures.

  1. Teaching faculty members have the authority to determine the academic assessment of the work where there has been academic misconduct within their classes and other instructional contexts. The academic assessment will be based on the academic standards stated in the course syllabus, catalogs, handbooks, and other materials notifying students of academic requirements. The procedure for appeal of the academic assessment in the course shall follow the policies and procedures of the teaching institution.
  2. The instructor is responsible for notifying the program administrator (chair, head, or director) at the teaching institution of the misconduct and course sanction. The program administrator is responsible for notifying the dean for graduate or undergraduate studies or other appropriate teaching institution administrators, who will, in turn, notify his/her counterpart at the student’s home institution.
  3. The student’s home institution may administer remedial action and institutional sanctions. These sanctions would be administered using the policies and procedures of the student’s home institution. If the student chooses to appeal the home institution sanctions, final adjudication is at the student’s home institution

Grade Appeals

Grade appeals for all courses will be handled by the teaching university. You will not have access to the grade appeal process at your home university unless it is also the teaching university for the relevant course.