New Requirements for Students

Beginning Fall Quarter 2018, all UC Davis students are required to take two news steps pertaining to academic life. For each course in which they are registered, students must

  1. Confirm that they have begun academic activity for each registered course
  2. Read and acknowledge the Code of Academic Conduct

Both tasks can be accomplished via a simple MyUCDavis web page created for this purpose.

What Instructors Can Do

While students will be prompted via email and MyUCDavis to take these actions, instructors should be aware of the new requirements, the rationale for them, and how to complete them. You can support students by reminding them on the first day of class to confirm participation online, acknowledging the Code of Academic Conduct, and familiarizing yourself with faculty responsibilities for enforcing academic honesty. Please consider adding information about this requirement into your course introduction materials or syllabus.

Rationale and Exigency

In 2017 the US Department of Education determined that UC Davis needed a process to validate that all students are attending their registered classes, primarily because participating in the courses for which they are registered is a requirement for students receiving financial aid. To comply with this ruling, a method of asking students to confirm that they have started work on each course for which they are registered was developed in cooperation with the Academic Senate and other key University stakeholders.

At the same time, the Davis Division of the Academic Senate recognized that more could be done to ensure students were aware of their responsibilities regarding academic honesty and the Code of Academic Conduct, which articulates academic misconduct on exams or coursework, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and other infractions. Creating a formal requirement and mechanism for students to acknowledge the Code of Academic Conduct increases student accountability.

Consequences

Failure to participate could bring significant consequences to students

  • A student's failure to acknowledge that they have begun a course may have an impact on future registration including prevention from registering in the next term. 
  • Students receiving financial aid may see their awards lowered or removed completely.