University of West Georgia.

What UWG's own pages say about how academic-integrity cases proceed

Who may be present

"All parties participating in conduct proceedings, including witnesses, may be accompanied by an advisor at the party's own expense, pursuant to the provisions of this policy." The handbook describes an advisor's role as three-fold: providing moral support, suggesting points for the student to address, and helping the student formulate questions for a hearing's parties and witnesses. "The advisor may not address the conduct officer or panel or otherwise speak on behalf of the student." — Student Handbook (Office of Student Conduct and Advocacy; retrieved Oct 6, 2026). Recording of a hearing by a participant is not addressed; the handbook states only that the institution's own documentation of proceedings "may include written findings of fact, transcripts, audio recordings and/or video recordings."

What follows on the record

An instructor-level finding is reported so that "[t]he case then becomes a part of the student's conduct record at UWG," which the handbook states exists "to create a mechanism for identifying patterns of dishonesty" supporting "suspension/expulsion of students with repeated incidents." A referral to the conduct office similarly means "[t]he incident will become part of the student's conduct record at UWG." Documentation of proceedings "will be on file in the Office of Community Standards in accordance with USG records retention policy." — Student Handbook (retrieved Oct 6, 2026). Notation on the academic transcript itself (as distinct from this conduct record) is not addressed in the sources reviewed.

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

UWG runs academic-integrity cases on two tiers. From the Student Handbook's Academic Integrity procedures (retrieved Oct 6, 2026):

The handbook's own text names the conduct office "the Office of Community Standards" throughout; UWG's live site now styles the same office the Office of Student Conduct and Advocacy, which is quoted as such elsewhere on this page. On appeal, the handbook states a written appeal is due "within five (5) business days of the date of the final written decision," on one of three grounds — procedural error, a finding inconsistent with the weight of the information, or new information — reviewed first by the Vice President for Student Affairs (or the Assistant Dean of Students where the sanction falls short of suspension or expulsion), with a further appeal to the President on the same three grounds, and optional discretionary review by the Board of Regents beyond that. Source: Student Handbook (PDF). What any of this means for a particular case is for the institution and its process to determine.

Revision history of this page

2026-10-06 — Page created by an automated scheduled pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. First-party material captured from eight westga.edu/libguides.westga.edu/uwgonline.service-now.com pages, all retrieved this date. Source dates: the Student Handbook, the General Counsel's Generative AI page, the ITS Artificial Intelligence page, the OSCA and Ombuds pages, and the Turnitin KB article carry no on-page revision date beyond a footer copyright year; the Institute for Faculty Excellence's syllabi-policy portion is dated Dec 5, 2023, though the adjoining faculty-guidance subsection (the Turnitin reliance caution) carries no separate date of its own; the library AI-literacy guide is dated "Last Updated: Aug 4, 2026." Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin and its AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) found Turnitin's base similarity product confirmed and documented in CourseDen; no other named vendor was found anywhere. STALE URL CAUGHT: the Office of Community Standards' long-indexed address (westga.edu/administration/vpsa/ocs/index.php, surfaced repeatedly by search) now 404s; the office has been renamed the Office of Student Conduct and Advocacy at a different path (westga.edu/administration/vpsa/osca/index.php), located by reading the live, client-rendered Student Affairs Division navigation in a browser rather than trusting the indexed URL; its phone and email matched what search results had reported under the old name, so the contact facts were not stale, only the address and the name. The Student Handbook PDF itself still names the office "the Office of Community Standards" throughout, which this page's section 02 quotes verbatim while noting the live site's current name in its own prose. OMBUDS FOUND AND ELIGIBLE: the Office of the University Ombuds is organizationally separate from the Office of Student Conduct and Advocacy (it sits under the Provost rather than Student Affairs), self-describes as independent, confidential, and neutral, and serves students generally rather than only academic-integrity cases. A second, differently scoped office search result, "Student Advocate" within the old Office of Community Standards listing, was not used, since it is the conduct office's own staff title rather than a separate advocacy office. Transcript notation (on the academic transcript document, as distinct from the conduct record) is not addressed anywhere in the Student Handbook as captured and is recorded above as not stated. Nothing is paraphrase-pending. Internet Archive captures: not requested this pass (unattended scheduled run). Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-10-06).

Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.