Academic Honesty and Copyright Policy

Prerequisite or Eligibility Criteria

Participants are advised to adhere to any eligibility and prerequisite requirements of de Souza courses.  We consider a prerequisite to be a required component to successfully complete a course.  It is the participants’ responsibility to ensure that all prerequisites and academic requirements in the course for which they are registered are met before the course end date.

Unless the aforementioned conditions have been met or special permission has been granted to the participant by de Souza, he/she will not receive any credit for the course.  If participants do not drop the course in time, their tuition fee will not be refunded.

Academic Honesty Policy

Academic honesty is an expectation at the de Souza Institute. At the Institute, we consider cheating and plagiarism to be serious academic misconduct. Cheating includes giving or receiving assistance on an examination, quiz, or assignment in a way not specifically permitted by the facilitator and/or outlined in the course syllabus.  Plagiarism is a form of dishonesty in which another’s work is presented as one’s own.

Participants are expected to be the original authors of all course work (including quizzes, tests, assignments) he/she submits, whether for a grade or not. All direct quotes (quotations from the original work) and indirect quotes (paraphrases of ideas presented in the original work) must be acknowledged. Participants must provide the author’s name, title of the work (e.g.: book, chapter, journal article, website), place of publication, publisher, year of publication, and the page number from which the quote or information was taken. For website referencing, please include the date of which the website was accessed. In some courses your submitted work will be securely analyzed by a 3rd party plagiarism detection service, which helps us determine whether plagiarism has occurred. Your privacy is protected and by default, your submission will not be used for plagiarism detection outside of de Souza Institute courses.

Participants enrolled in de Souza Courses are considered to be responsible scholars. By seeking credit or recognition for the course work that is not his/her own, the participant engages in an act of academic dishonesty which is considered a serious offense. As such, participants are expected to adhere rigorously to the principles of intellectual honesty. Depending on the circumstances, penalties may include rejection of the submitted work, removal from the course, and/or no credit and certificate being awarded.  Participants risk being rejected from future de Souza course offerings.

Who will decide that academic dishonesty has occurred?

The course facilitator decides the sanction for academic dishonesty within his or her course.  The sanctions typically range from failing the assignments or exams to failing the course. If a participant feels that a decision has been made in error, the issue needs to be brought forward within 10 business days to their course facilitator who will review the case with the de Souza review panel. All decisions are final.

Copyright policy

We at de Souza Institute recognize and respect intellectual property rights and are committed to fulfilling our moral and legal obligations with respect to our use of journal articles and books.

No participant may reproduce any copyrighted work in print, video, or digital form developed by de Souza Institute. All content provided by the Institute is considered protected even if they do not carry the copyright symbol ©. 

de Souza Institute holds an Annual Copyright License from which enables de Souza participants to access to electronic journal articles and books. Participants can print journals and other copyrighted materials from the Virtual library while enrolled in a de Souza course. However, participants ARE NOT allowed to email or distribute any of the copyrighted materials; this includes other participants enrolled in a de Souza course.  All participants must access copyrighted material themselves through the de Souza Institute Virtual Library.

Participants may print and use resources such as charts and tables provided in their de Souza course(s) as long as the de Souza Logo and references are visible.

If any participant witnesses a potential copyright infringement, please bring the matter to the attention of the individual as well as to the de Souza Support at support@desouzainstitute.com.