University of South Alabama.

What the Student Academic Conduct Policy says about how cases proceed

Who may be present

The Student Academic Conduct Policy (approved May 11, 2018, effective for alleged misconduct occurring after August 15, 2018) permits no general advisor or support person for a student facing an academic-misconduct charge: at an Academic Integrity Review Panel, "Legal counsel or other representatives are not permitted." The only accompaniment it names is narrower still — "In cases of documented disability, a student's SDS-registered aide may accompany the student to departmental conferences and panel reviews," limited to "disability support and assistance," since "the aide is not allowed to participate in the conference or review." Recording is not addressed for the departmental conference or the panel's review meeting itself; the policy states only that the panel chair "shall maintain complete, confidential records of all proceedings, including minutes of all meetings," but "neither minutes nor recordings will be made of meetings when deliberations occur." This is a different, narrower process than the University's general Code of Student Conduct, which governs non-academic misconduct and separately permits a community-member advisor and a single verbatim recording of formal hearings — that process is not the one academic-misconduct cases use.

What follows on the record

Not stated in the sources reviewed. The Student Academic Conduct Policy states only the penalty range and its outer edge: "Penalties may range from the loss of credit for a particular assignment to dismissal from the University," "dismissal from any University of South Alabama college or school for reasons of academic misconduct will also result in permanent dismissal from the University," and "Degree revocation may be warranted in cases involving academic misconduct by former students while they were at USA." Neither this policy, the Additional Academic Course Policies summary, nor the General Academic Policies section of the University Bulletin states a transcript-notation symbol, a record-retention period, or a disclosure rule specific to an academic-misconduct finding.

The two questions an adviser raises first, answered from this institution's own published documents — or recorded as not stated in them.

The Student Academic Conduct Policy (retrieved Oct 4, 2026) places responsibility centrally: "All matters related to academic misconduct are the responsibility of the academic units involved and the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs." Initial reporting is instructor-driven:

A disputed charge goes to a Departmental Conference with the department chair and the instructor, "the purpose of which is to seek a mutually satisfactory resolution." A student dissatisfied with that outcome has another 72 hours to request an Academic Integrity Review. In a first-offense case, the Office of the Provost first conducts an "administrative review" of the record and may itself uphold the departmental recommendation — in which case "the ruling is subject to no further appeal" — or refer the case to an Academic Integrity Review Panel of five faculty and two student members. The panel decides "by majority vote" via "secret ballot," and its certified decision "is considered final and is not subject to further appeal." No provision of this policy states an evidentiary standard such as preponderance of the evidence. Source: Student Academic Conduct Policy (PDF, approved May 11, 2018). What these quotations mean for any particular case is for the institution and its process to determine.

Revision history of this page

2026-10-04 — Page created. Cold build; no prior CANDIDATES.md or procedure-facts.json research to reuse. Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) and category sweep (Innovation in Learning Center technology-tools pages, Academic Affairs policy library, USAonline proctoring page, the Lowdown student handbook, and both Generative AI policy documents) found Turnitin confirmed only for similarity/originality checking, no AI-writing-specific feature of Turnitin or any other AI-text detector named anywhere on southalabama.edu, and three proctoring services (ProctorU, RPNow, Respondus) with no AI-text-detection claim. NOT DISQUALIFIED: an empty inventory for AI-writing detection, not a documented deactivation. TWO SEPARATE GENERATIVE-AI DOCUMENTS, BOTH USED: the student-facing "Statement on Generative Artificial Intelligence" inside Additional Academic Course Policies (updated July 20, 2026) is itself drawn from the fuller "Generative Artificial Intelligence Usage for Faculty and Student Use in Academic Coursework" policy (Last Review Date 7/7/2026), which the shorter document links directly; both were read and quoted rather than treating the summary as the whole policy. PROCESS SCOPE NOTE, DELIBERATE: South Alabama publishes two distinct disciplinary processes — the Student Academic Conduct Policy (academic misconduct, including GenAI violations, via the Office of the Provost and the AMPR case record) and a separate Code of Student Conduct (non-academic misconduct, via the Office of Student Conduct, with its own advisor right, "preponderance of evidence" standard, and formal-hearing recording). Section 02 above describes only the academic policy, which is what a GenAI or Turnitin-related accusation actually proceeds under; the non-academic process was read (Prohibited Conduct, Student Conduct Process, and Disciplinary Procedures pages at southalabama.edu/departments/studentaffairs/studentconduct/) and is named here only to keep the two from being conflated, since they differ sharply on accompaniment, recording, and standard of proof. ABSENCE RECORDED, NOT INFERRED: the 2018 Student Academic Conduct Policy states no evidentiary standard anywhere in its text; the "preponderance of the evidence" language that governs the general Code of Student Conduct is not carried over into the academic policy, and this page does not assume it is. OFFICE CONTACT: the Student Academic Conduct Policy names no dedicated academic-integrity office, only "the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs"; its own contact page (southalabama.edu/departments/academicaffairs/contactus.html) publishes a general phone number and mailing address but no general office email, only named staff members' individual addresses, which are not substituted here. OMBUDS/ADVOCACY CHECKED AND NOT FOUND: no office titled ombudsperson, ombudsman, or student advocate was located anywhere on southalabama.edu in this review; the Dean of Students Office handles the separate non-academic conduct process and is not described by the University as independent, confidential, or neutral, so it is not substituted for an ombuds. RECORD/RETENTION ABSENCE NAMED: transcript notation, retention period, and third-party disclosure for an academic-misconduct finding are not stated in the Student Academic Conduct Policy, the Additional Academic Course Policies summary, or the General Academic Policies section of the University Bulletin (bulletin.southalabama.edu); a direct fetch of the Bulletin's General Academic Policies PDF returned no readable content in this pass and was not otherwise substituted. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Archive captures pending — not requested this pass (unattended scheduled run). Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-10-04).

2026-10-06 — Internet Archive captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: southalabama.edu — Academic Affairs Contact → https://web.archive.org/web/20261006044557/https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/academicaffairs/contactus.html; Additional Academic Course Policies and Support Services → https://web.archive.org/web/20261006044648/https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/academicaffairs/resources/policies/additionalacademiccoursepolicies.pdf; Student Academic Conduct Policy → https://web.archive.org/web/20261006044802/https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/academicaffairs/resources/policies/studentacademicconductpolicy8.15.18.pdf; TurnItIn — Innovation in Learning Center → https://web.archive.org/web/20261006044821/https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/ilc/turnitin.html.

2026-10-07 — Internet Archive captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: Proctoring Services — USAonline → https://web.archive.org/web/20261007125503/https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/usaonline/proctoring.html.

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