Facilitation Meeting Guidelines

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The Academic Integrity Council provides facilitation meeting guidelines to guide the university community regarding the facilitation process, which is the initial meeting offered in the Academic Integrity Process by the Academic Integrity Council. The facilitation process is designed to support faculty and afford students a voice to ensure due process. Upon detection of a potential academic integrity violation, the faculty member must report the potential violation to the Academic Integrity Office. The faculty member may consult with the academic integrity personnel on appropriate communications to seek recommendations, if needed, for assigning violation levels and sanctions for the student(s). The academic integrity personnel may only suggest sanctions as the instructor of record ultimately will determine the sanction that will be submitted prior to the facilitation.

For Level I violations, faculty and/or students may request a facilitation meeting, but they are not required to have a facilitation.

Level II and III violations require a facilitation meeting.

Steps

A faculty member submits a Potential Academic Integrity Violation Maxient Report, herein after designated “Maxient report.”
Faculty may opt to resolve level I violations by noting that they have resolved the issue themselves by completing The Academic Integrity Faculty Resolution Form, a Maxient report form. The Academic Integrity Faculty Resolution Form will capture the violation, responsibility, and sanction for recordkeeping purposes and ensure that repeated violations across courses may be documented in case previous violations exist for the student. All parties must sign the form to signify that they agree to the violation, responsibility, and sanction.
If the Academic Integrity Faculty Resolution Form is not included in the Maxient report, then the student will receive notice that an academic integrity report has been submitted, which includes the Academic Integrity Student Acknowledgement (maxient.com).The student selects from the following:

1. I accept responsibility for the reported academic integrity violation and the sanction.
2. I accept responsibility for the reported academic integrity violation but not the sanction, and I would like to meet with a facilitator.
3. I deny involvement in the reported academic integrity violation and would like to meet with a facilitator.

The student will include a facilitation statement in the form, upload any supporting documentation, and identify available times for a facilitation meeting if requested.

If a facilitation meeting is requested or required, the Office Manager for Institutional Effectiveness will schedule the facilitation meeting with the student, the instructor, and an Academic Integrity Councilor.

The Facilitation and/or Meeting Process

The facilitation meeting is a conversation between the faculty member and the student with an appointed facilitator from the Academic Integrity Council. The Academic Integrity Councilor (facilitator) will document the meeting by completing Academic Integrity Facilitation Form (maxient.com) The facilitator’s role is to ensure the policy and process are followed and to answer questions related to the policy.

Facilitation meetings should occur within ten business days from the time the student is notified by the faculty member. Facilitation meetings are held in an online, synchronous environment hosted by the Academic Integrity Office. Invitations are sent to the facilitator, the faculty member of record, and the student involved in the case.

Additional witnesses, like Teaching Assistants or School Directors, may attend the facilitation meeting to provide insight, but they may only attend if they have direct knowledge of the exact violation being facilitated. The Academic Integrity Office may request that these parties submit a written document clarifying their knowledge and the content of their awareness prior to the facilitation. Character witnesses or any guest are not permitted at a facilitation.

At the conclusion of the facilitation meeting, the outcome will be documented as follows:

The student and instructor agreed that a violation had not occurred.

The student accepts responsibility for the reported academic integrity violation and the sanction.

The student accepts responsibility for the reported academic integrity violation but not the sanction and plans to submit an appeal.

The student denies involvement in the reported academic integrity violation and plans to submit an appeal.

The student failed to appear at the scheduled facilitation meeting.

In cases involving graduate students, honors students, or athletes, those respective offices will be notified if the case results in an XF or is transitioning to the appeal stage of the academic integrity process. School directors will also be notified of the outcome of the facilitation meeting with a copy of the Facilitation Resolution Form.

In cases where c or d are selected, the student can file an appeal with the Academic Integrity Council. The appeal initiation form will be shared via email to the student and must be submitted within five business days of the facilitation meeting.

The Procedures for Academic Integrity Facilitators

Members of the Academic Integrity Council will serve as facilitators. As such,facilitators shall complete a training program or access the training handbook created by the Academic Integrity Director and engage in a program of professional development over the course of their tenure to ensure they are aware of the best practices in adjudicating cases concerning academic dishonesty and guiding students who violate the process through the remediation program.

Facilitators shall provide their availability to the Academic Integrity Office each term to aid in the scheduling of facilitation meetings. They must respond to correspondence from the academic integrity personnel to allow facilitations to be scheduled within the allotted time frame.

At the facilitation meeting, the facilitator should begin the meeting first by explaining the process and purpose of the meeting and then allowing the faculty member to explain the violation, present evidence, and the student to respond. Prior to the facilitation, faculty can consult with the Academic Integrity Director to determine the level of violation and sanction. However, ultimately, the faculty member makes the final decision at the end of the facilitation meeting whether the violation(s) occurred and which sanction is to be assigned. Facilitators may not determine sanctions.

If the student denies responsibility or disagrees with the assigned sanction, the facilitator shall advise both parties of the appeals process. It should be noted that a facilitator may only inform faculty and students regarding the appeals process. The student must submit the appeal form sent from the Academic Integrity Office to officially initiate the appeal.

Facilitation Notes Regarding Timely Response from Faculty and Students

If the student or faculty member fails to respond to the notification email, fails to attend the meeting, or is more than 10 minutes late for the arranged facilitation or faculty meeting, a facilitation meeting may proceed without one party present.
If a student fails to respond to the notification email within five business days or fails to attend the scheduled meeting within the limitation of a 10-minute reprieve as mentioned above, the student forfeits the right to appeal.
If more than one student is involved in the alleged misconduct, those students' behaviors must be addressed separately and independently in two distinct meetings, and care should be taken to ensure that each student's privacy is maintained.

Proxy for Faculty in Meetings

If a faculty member or instructor of record for a course cannot attend a meeting (be it a facilitation or an appeal), that faculty member may appoint a proxy or have a proxy be appointed on their behalf to attend the meeting. The proxy may be a school director, a program coordinator, or a faculty member who teaches the same or a similar course sufficiently to address the nature of the course and the alleged academic integrity code violation. If a proxy is used for a facilitation or academic integrity appeal, the faculty member or instructor of record who filed the initial report must notify the Academic Integrity Office via email to integrityFREEMississippi , providing the name of the faculty appearing as a surrogate and a brief statement expressing that individual’s ability to do so. Upon review, this information will be provided to both the facilitator and/or Academic Integrity Council as needed, as well as to the student alleged to have made the violation to ensure proper preparation and awareness by all parties.

Assigning Proxy Representation for Faculty Not Currently Under Contract

If the instructor of record or faculty member for a course is not under contract at the time of the facilitation or appeal due to the discovery of academic integrity violations at the end of the semester or the departure of a faculty member for any other reason, the faculty member will be allowed to volunteer to still serve as the instructor/faculty member for facilitations or appeals. If the instructor is not able to attend due to commitments during the summer months, then the school director for the area of the course will assume that role for the purpose of facilitations and appeal meetings.

The Duties and Procedures for Faculty

Faculty members are responsible for knowing and following the Student Academic Integrity Policy and communicating to their students the importance of academic integrity in general, as well as any class-specific expectations. It is also the responsibility of each member of the University faculty to include the University's Academic Integrity Policy statement, inclusive of the course’s artificial intelligence usage policy, in course syllabi and enforce the policy when violations are discovered through the submission of any and all reports.

Each member of the University faculty is required to report all discovered potential Academic Integrity Violations to the Academic Integrity Office. If a faculty member resolves a Level I violation, they must report via Maxient that violation to the Academic Integrity Office and note that the issue is resolved through the The Academic Integrity Faculty Resolution Form. The mandatory reporting requirement helps the Academic Integrity Office monitor student behavior across courses with awareness of multiple violations in one course or one academic area of study.

Faculty who intentionally or routinely fail to implement the Academic Integrity Policy properly will be subject to formal notification from the Academic Integrity Director with a carbon copy to their school director. Faculty may receive progressive disciplinary measures (as appropriate to the situation) consistent with procedures outlined in the University Faculty Handbook.

Faculty Notes

If multiple students are involved in a single case, faculty must notify students separately to ensure confidentiality and to comply with FERPA regulations.
Faculty may submit evidence of previously undetected violations for the student’s record; however, the sanction should be appropriate to the current violation. Please see Student Academic Integrity Policy 3.1.5 for how to handle previously unrecorded violations.
Once an instructor has assigned an XF, it may not be changed through the usual grade change process; instead, any change must be decided through the appeals process and Council as set forth in this policy.
If a student decides to withdraw from the University entirely, the student will still receive an XF for the course for which the academic integrity violation occurred while receiving W grades for all other courses.