Campus Policies
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Campus policies do apply to online student learning. Often, when students register to study with a particular university, they will also agree to a range of policies. This entry highlights some of the main student policies.
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The Rationales for Campus Policies
Policies are set at universities after much consideration, often involving universities’ legal counsel, administrators, faculty, staff, and students. Policies are put into place to protect the rights of all individuals in the academic learning environment and to balance each group’s respective needs and concerns. The “academy” strives to provide a safe learning environment for all students. It also aims to offer a high quality education that can offer positive impacts in the world.
Student Conduct
Student conduct policies are in place to offer general guidelines about how students should interact professionally. There are strict anti-harassment policies—protecting students against harassment by others on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religious beliefs, and other reasons. These policies also set guidelines for civility and respect in terms of interactions and discourse. Even if there is disagreement among students about hotly contested issues, students still need to remain civil and mutually supportive of each other—for an open sharing of ideas.
Students who contravene the student conduct policy may be subject to a disciplinary process described by the policies. Depending on the severity of the breach, there may be grounds for suspension, dismissal, and other sanctions.
Equal Access
University policies are in place to ensure that students with defined and officially recognized disabilities have equal access to learning. This is often addressed through various support services to ensure that lectures are not only delivered orally but that there may be a text or ASL-translated version available.
The Student Press
Students who write for the student press have many freedoms of speech and journalistic expression. However, they are also bound by media laws disallowing libel, defamation, obscenity, hate speech, and others. They also must adhere to intellectual property laws and so avoid plagiarism and misuse of others’ intellectual property.
Crisis Situations
Policies may also address potential emergency situations such as criminal incidents, weather threats, infrastructure break-downs, or other potentialities.
Academic Policies
A range of academic policies are in play. First, faculty members have the right of academic freedom. They also have the right to assess students—albeit as fairly and justly as possible. The policies usually define the proper progression in a learning series.
Academic Integrity
Most campuses have academic integrity policies that disallow any sort of academic dishonesty: unfairly accessing information during an exam; accessing others’ works and using that as their own; impersonating another person; using third-party-written-papers as their own, and a range of other behaviors.
Privacy Rights
Students have privacy rights, as delineated by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. While this mainly defines what university may / may not release about students, this concept of privacy would be important to address among students. Students themselves should consider online classrooms public spaces and not release information about themselves or others without some solid, thoughtful consideration.
FERPA
Intellectual Property Rights
Generally, it is understood that students own the rights to the papers and other tangible intellectual property that they create in the classroom. Their innovations and designs belong to them. However, this is not an absolutely defined situation. Students who work under grants to conduct particular research on campus laboratories, for example, may not have the rights to their findings—but that may belong to the university. Most campuses have intellectual property policies, and those have to be considered to understand who owns what. Some departments and colleges also request that students offer partial IP releases of their work for academic purposes.
Grade Resolution
Grades may be points of contention for students. Generally, there are policies for contesting grades, and there are clear processes applied to resolving these. Often, the decision still resides with the instructor.
The syllabuses that instructors use define how grades are arrived at. If those policies have been followed accurately, it’s often difficult to contest grades.
Unique Policies
Policies have to adhere to federal, state, local, and other laws under which the universities and colleges function. The letters of the law and policies differ between campuses, so those should be referred to for exact policies and enforcement of policies
See Also
K-State Student Policies and Guidelines: http://www.k-state.edu/dh/stupolicies/
K-State Manuals and Handbooks: http://www.k-state.edu/dh/manuals/
Kaplin, W.A. & Lee, B.A. (1995). The Law of Higher Education: A Comprehensive Guide to Legal Implications of Administrative Decision Making. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.