Student Code of Conduct

• Students will conduct themselves at all time in a manner appropriate with the realization that they are representatives of IMT.
• They will be sensitive to the culture and religious norms of the UAE and not engage in any behavior that would be deemed disrespectful.
• Students will not engage in any activity that is considered illegal or irresponsible by the rules and laws on the UAE. Any violation of UAE laws will result in immediate dismissal.
•  Students will display ethics of honesty and integrity at all times.

I. Student Behavior

IMT takes a very serious view of misbehavior and has a clearly mentioned policy on what constitutes unacceptable behavioral practices. Guidelines have been provided to the students about the same. Please refer to Standards of Personal Conduct which will be put in a form of a declaration separately duly signed by the students at the time of Registering into the Program.

II. Standards of Personal Conduct

Students of IMT are expected to meet the highest standards in their personal conduct. In particular, students are required to:

• Observe the regulations of IMT and directives of the faculty and staff.
•  Conduct themselves in a courteous and considerate manner in their dealings with faculty, staff, visitors and other students.
•  Maintain a dress code which is in line with the cultural requirements of UAE.
• Use the Institute’s property / facilities with due care and avoid causing harm to it.
• Refrain from disruptive behavior, such as talking during speeches or classes; arriving late for or leaving early from classes; receiving or initiating telephone calls on mobile phones during classes; and making negative or rude comments during class about other students, faculty members, or the opinions of other students.
• Refrain from borrowing or taking someone else’s property without having permission from the owner. Taking or borrowing without permission is considered stealing.
• Refrain from inviting external speakers or issuing public releases without prior permission from the Student Affairs Office.
• Refrain from organizing or engaging in activities such as rallies or demonstrations inside IMT without prior permission from the appropriate authority.
• Refrain from using the facilities of the institute for other than official purposes, unless previously authorized.
• Refrain from distributing leaflets or journals, posting notices, or collecting signatures on the premises of IMT without prior permission from the Student Affairs office.
• Refrain from falsifying documents or using falsified documents for any purpose connected with IMT.
• Provide security guards with personal identification and appropriate documentation when requested.
• Refrain from using another person’s name and/or ID number for any reason. Impersonation is a serious offence and it will be dealt as per the UAE law.
• Refrain from organizing off-campus events without prior permission from the Student Affairs office.
• Students should also refrain from engaging in improper conduct, which can damage the reputation of IMT. For example, students should not:
  • Access inappropriate sites on the Internet.
  • Use inappropriate chat lines/rooms.
  • Misuse the electronic communication (e mail) facility.
  • Use or sell illegal substances and/or materials.
  • Exchange any gifts of significant monetary value with members of the faculty or staff.

III. Code of Conduct for Residential Students

Residential students staying in the hostels provided by the Institute, please refer to the Residence Living Manual for the rules and regulations. Any legal implications of the student’s behavior are their own and the institute does not take any responsibility for the same. Further violation of the prescribed code of conduct is a valid ground for disciplinary action against the student and may even lead to expulsion from the Institute.

The purpose of the student grievance procedure is to resolve grievances, other than grade complaints, that are introduced by students. If a student has a complaint or grievance about any aspect of Institute life:  

• He / she should raise the matter at the earliest opportunity to the Student Services officer/ program coordinator who will try to solve it at their level.  
• If the student is still not satisfied with the result, he / she can submit his grievance in writing to the Program Chair within two weeks from the occurrence of the incident.  
• Program chair will try to resolve the issue at his/her level.  
• If the student is still not satisfied, then the matter goes to Student grievance committee.  
• The committee will then deliberate upon their findings and make recommendations to the Director/Dean-Academics, who will take the final decision, to be communicated to the affected parties. 
• The Director shall be the final authority for the revision of decision or any modification therein 

Classroom interaction and active participation in all course related activities is a key contributor to the learning process. Therefore, students are not only expected to attend all classes regularly but are also strongly encouraged to actively participate in case discussions, presentations, and all other classroom activities.

IMTD encourages students to attend all classes. Attendance is regularly monitored by the Program Office and updated regularly. The students are required to maintain a minimum attendance of 75% in each course.

Exceptions are granted on medical grounds/unavoidable official duty (valid documents required) by the Program Chair. The maximum limit of such exception is 25% of the total classes in a course. The students shall ensure their presence during case study/project presentations/ group activities or any other internal assessments.

Academic Integrity, Definitions Of Plagiarism And Other Offences

IMT expects its students to uphold high standards of academic integrity and conduct. In particular, students are required to:

• Abide by high standards of academic integrity, ethics and honesty. Refrain from cheating on homework and examinations, plagiarizing other people’s work by submitting it as their own, and/or any other forms of academic dishonesty.
• Adhere to the published test or examination rules and regulations.
  • Cheating / using unfair means in examinations
  • Significant paraphrasing in student’s written academic work
  • Switching off camera during remote examination
  • Disobeying instructions of invigilators during examinations
  • Unacknowledged use of information, ideas unless such ideas are commonplace
  • Citing sources which student had not read or referred to
  • Breaching the word limit of assignments and mentioning wrong word count.
• Plagiarism is another type of Academic Misconduct for which students needs to be aware of what constitutes plagiarism and its consequences as described below.

Plagiarism Definition

Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s ideas, words, projects, artwork, phrasing, sentence structure or other work without properly acknowledging the ownership (source) of the property (item). Plagiarism is considered as academic misconduct. Students should understand what the plagiarism is and take well informed steps to avoid it.

Plagiarism can take various forms. The main categories of use of unreferenced work that could be construed as an act of plagiarism can be summarized as:

• Using someone else’s quoted words without putting these words in quotation marks.
• Unauthorized borrowing of another person’s idea, research work or theories.
• Failure to reference the other author’s written words, quotes or definitions.
• Use of descriptions or quotations of another author without acknowledgement.
• Cosmetic paraphrasing occurs when the acknowledgement is made. The paraphrased quote is very similar to the original work.
• Cut and paste work’ from electronic sources without explicit mentioning of complete URL. The inclusion of large amounts of pasted material, even if acknowledged, raise doubts about authenticity of student’s work.
• Wrong attribution is more technical but the acknowledgement is not from the original work but from another secondary research source.

Plagiarism Check Process at IMT

All work submitted by students is accepted on the understanding that it is their own. Plagiarism is considered as a serious academic offense at IMT-Dubai. All IMT-Dubai students should adhere to high standards of academic integrity that includes referencing and acknowledging other’s work, good literature review procedures while submitting assignments, projects or case studies.

The plagiarism check process can be listed as:

• The student is responsible for submitting a proper referenced assessment.
• The IMT-Dubai faculty member is responsible for implementing the acceptable academic code of conduct through proper student orientation, citing examples of assignments, projects and thesis work that have followed proper acknowledgement and referencing standards.
• Every faculty member provides and implements strict academic code of conduct guidelines at the beginning of course.
• The CANVAS LMS portal at IMT Dubai is integrated with OURIGINAL previously known as URKUND anti-plagiarism software (www.urkund.com). The course faculty asks the students where appropriate to submit such assessment for ‘plagiarism check’ as soft versions (in Word, PDF, or PPT formats) on the CANVAS LMS portal. The course instructor shall create an Assignment on CANVAS LMS portal (imtdubai.instructure.com/login/canvas) for online submission and file-uploads, with Plagiarism Review enabled using OURIGINAL. The students can view this link for the submission of assessments on CANVAS LMS, and submit/upload their submissions.
• URKUND’s ant-plagiarism system works with an ever expanding number of documents and sources classified into sources found on the Internet, articles published in academic journals and previously submitted documents. This includes everything from Wikipedia to national repositories of theses language indiscriminately (https://www.urkund.com/the-urkund-system/)
•  Internet – The Internet contains billions of pages with various content; everything from material published by universities and colleges to government agency material, press articles, books, reference works and much more. There are also specific cheat sites online with ready-produced material.
•  A big part of the material available on the Internet is only accessible through password- protected systems; hence, it cannot be located with the aid of an ordinary search engine. There is also a plethora of search engines, each with its own coverage. On top of this, there is a huge amount of material on the Internet that cannot be found though using regular search engines. OURIGINAL (URKUND) manages to find sources in all parts mentioned above.
• Published material: Published material consists of hundreds of millions of books, journals, reference works, scientific articles, and so forth. Some material is accessible electronically via specific databases, whilst other material can only be found in the printed format. OURIGINAL has formed strategic partnerships with a number of leading information providers.
• Student material: URKUND always checks all assignments against previously submitted material. Consequently, students cannot steal another student’s work nor plagiarize through means of too close collaboration.
• OURIGINAL generates an analysis overview and is delivered to the course Instructor, either via CANVAS LMS or by email. The results are presented in a comprehensible, interactive analysis report so that the instructor can make the final judgement based on URKUND’s analysis if any plagiarism has indeed occurred. URKUND anti-plagiarism system generates originality report with percentage of similarity and the citations from where plagiarism might have occurred. The instructor uses the originality report to determine the similarity that is acceptable. The student will also be able to see the originality report. The instructor can provide the option to the students to revise the assessment upon comparing with originality report and resubmit the assessment.
• If an assignment is submitted by the student through e-mail to the instructor, the instructor shall login to URKUND portal directly, upload the student submissions and can check the plagiarism using upload documents option.

Plagiarism Policy

IMT expects its students to uphold high standards of academic integrity and conduct. In particular, students are required to:

• Abide by high standards of academic integrity, ethics and honesty. Refrain from cheating on homework and examinations, plagiarizing other people’s work by submitting it as their own, and/or any other forms of academic dishonesty.
• Adhere to the published test or examination rules and regulations.
  • Cheating / using unfair means in examinations
  • Significant paraphrasing in student’s written academic work
  • Switching off camera during remote examination
  • Disobeying instructions of invigilators during examinations
  • Unacknowledged use of information, ideas unless such ideas are commonplace
  • Citing sources which student had not read or referred to
  • Breaching the word limit of assignments and mentioning wrong word count.
• Plagiarism is another type of Academic Misconduct for which students needs to be aware of what constitutes plagiarism and its consequences as described below.

Plagiarism Definition

Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s ideas, words, projects, artwork, phrasing, sentence structure or other work without properly acknowledging the ownership (source) of the property (item). Plagiarism is considered as academic misconduct. Students should understand what the plagiarism is and take well informed steps to avoid it.

Plagiarism can take various forms. The main categories of use of unreferenced work that could be construed as an act of plagiarism can be summarized as:

• Using someone else’s quoted words without putting these words in quotation marks.
• Unauthorized borrowing of another person’s idea, research work or theories.
• Failure to reference the other author’s written words, quotes or definitions.
• Use of descriptions or quotations of another author without acknowledgement.
• Cosmetic paraphrasing occurs when the acknowledgement is made. The paraphrased quote is very similar to the original work.
• Cut and paste work’ from electronic sources without explicit mentioning of complete URL. The inclusion of large amounts of pasted material, even if acknowledged, raise doubts about authenticity of student’s work.
• Wrong attribution is more technical but the acknowledgement is not from the original work but from another secondary research source.

Plagiarism Check Process at IMT

All work submitted by students is accepted on the understanding that it is their own. Plagiarism is considered as a serious academic offense at IMT-Dubai. All IMT-Dubai students should adhere to high standards of academic integrity that includes referencing and acknowledging other’s work, good literature review procedures while submitting assignments, projects or case studies.

The plagiarism check process can be listed as:

• The student is responsible for submitting a proper referenced assessment.
• The IMT-Dubai faculty member is responsible for implementing the acceptable academic code of conduct through proper student orientation, citing examples of assignments, projects and thesis work that have followed proper acknowledgement and referencing standards.
• Every faculty member provides and implements strict academic code of conduct guidelines at the beginning of course.
• The CANVAS LMS portal at IMT Dubai is integrated with OURIGINAL previously known as URKUND anti-plagiarism software (www.urkund.com). The course faculty asks the students where appropriate to submit such assessment for ‘plagiarism check’ as soft versions (in Word, PDF, or PPT formats) on the CANVAS LMS portal. The course instructor shall create an Assignment on CANVAS LMS portal (imtdubai.instructure.com/login/canvas) for online submission and file-uploads, with Plagiarism Review enabled using OURIGINAL. The students can view this link for the submission of assessments on CANVAS LMS, and submit/upload their submissions.
• URKUND’s ant-plagiarism system works with an ever expanding number of documents and sources classified into sources found on the Internet, articles published in academic journals and previously submitted documents. This includes everything from Wikipedia to national repositories of theses language indiscriminately (https://www.urkund.com/the-urkund-system/)
•  Internet – The Internet contains billions of pages with various content; everything from material published by universities and colleges to government agency material, press articles, books, reference works and much more. There are also specific cheat sites online with ready-produced material.
•  A big part of the material available on the Internet is only accessible through password- protected systems; hence, it cannot be located with the aid of an ordinary search engine. There is also a plethora of search engines, each with its own coverage. On top of this, there is a huge amount of material on the Internet that cannot be found though using regular search engines. OURIGINAL (URKUND) manages to find sources in all parts mentioned above.
• Published material: Published material consists of hundreds of millions of books, journals, reference works, scientific articles, and so forth. Some material is accessible electronically via specific databases, whilst other material can only be found in the printed format. OURIGINAL has formed strategic partnerships with a number of leading information providers.
• Student material: URKUND always checks all assignments against previously submitted material. Consequently, students cannot steal another student’s work nor plagiarize through means of too close collaboration.
• OURIGINAL generates an analysis overview and is delivered to the course Instructor, either via CANVAS LMS or by email. The results are presented in a comprehensible, interactive analysis report so that the instructor can make the final judgement based on URKUND’s analysis if any plagiarism has indeed occurred. URKUND anti-plagiarism system generates originality report with percentage of similarity and the citations from where plagiarism might have occurred. The instructor uses the originality report to determine the similarity that is acceptable. The student will also be able to see the originality report. The instructor can provide the option to the students to revise the assessment upon comparing with originality report and resubmit the assessment.
• If an assignment is submitted by the student through e-mail to the instructor, the instructor shall login to URKUND portal directly, upload the student submissions and can check the plagiarism using upload documents option.

Level of Plagiarism and Penalties

• Award zero
• marks for the component of assessment.  
• Award grade XF (fail due to academic integrity violations) in the course. The student has to repeat the courses once again.  
• In case of repeat violations, the student may be dismissed from the program. 

As defined by WTO, intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time. Four types of intellectual properties are Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, and Trade Secrets.  

Policies relating to Copyright and Intellectual Property of the institute are as follows:  

1. In case of Institute sponsored research, authors shall be given full credit for their work, and copy right shall remain with the institute. 
2.  Independent/non-sponsored publishable work of faculty, staff, and students, the copyright shall remain with the author.  
3. In cases where the produced materials are result of specific assignments by the Institute, the Institute will retain the right to determine the copyright issues.  
4. The Institute owns the copyrights to all multimedia, all electronic and computer based instructional materials produced and delivered by faculty and staff while employed at IMTD and retains the right to reproduce, update, distribute, transmit and alter the course materials.  
5. While employed at IMTD, no faculty and staff shall publish any material attaching any other affiliation except his/her official designation.  

Faculty members shall not include any content which constitutes libel, invasion of privacy, infringement of copyright or literary rights or otherwise violate the legal rights of any persons under the UAE law. 

IMTD is committed to safeguard the wellbeing of its students and employees and other stakeholders who use its premises and services from the risk of being drawn into radicalization, terrorism, or extremism. In particular, young people can be drawn to extremism by being exposed to people, messages or literature that espouse radical behavior. Institution may be the target of hybrid threats through a mix of physical attacks, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns attempting to radicalise the political narrative.

Physical and digital infrastructure that are widely used in daily life (e.g. energy, transport, healthcare, residential hostel, class rooms etc.). It must be protected and made resilient against both physical and cyber-attacks. In order to safeguard and prevent radicalization among young students, following approach comprising of detection, awareness and control to ensure a safe environment for students and all stake holders.

Detection – Early detection of radicalization is very important for its control and minimize the associated risks. All employees and students of IMTD are frequently made aware of early signs of radicalization among the youth. Employees and students are advised to report any behaviour change among their close contacts that include the following:

• General changes patterns of behaviour or daily routine
• Becoming overly secretive;
• Changes in type of dress;
• Use of inappropriate language;
• Possession of extremist literature;
• The expression of extremist views;
• Advocating violent actions;
• Association with known radicals

Awareness – All students are informed about the policy and on radicalization and its consequence on their and others’ wellbeing. The awareness is built through sessions during orientation at the time of enrollment as well as periodic workshop by professionals.

Control-Any person detecting or suspecting radicalization in any form is required to report the matter to Director/ Dean/Program Chair/Student Service Executive/Head Administration/Student Counsellor immediately. In absence of the Director, the matter must be reported to Dean and the Head of Administration. The competent authority such as Student Counsellor/ Third party expert on the matter shall be consulted for investigation internally. The institution reserves the right to take necessary disciplinary actions against those student/employees presenting safeguarding concerns.

Such cases may be reported to local authorities, if deemed, for necessary action and the institution reserve the right to share the information relating to the students/employees with the investigating agencies.

The institution shall comply with any governmental requirements issued on safeguarding students/ employees and other stakeholders from all forms of abuse.

IMTD follows a zero-tolerance policy in regards to corruption and bribery in all its operations. IMTD mandates that all its employees shall stay away from corruption and bribery in any form. All members of the BoG and the Advisory Board, employees and students shall conduct all activities honestly, fairly and professionally.

Articles 234-239 of the UAE Federal Law 3/1987 (popularly known as the UAE Federal Penal code) provide legal framework to deal with the cases of corruption and bribery. An act of bribery is committed if an individual accepts or promises a gift/benefit/ other grant, whether directly or indirectly, in exchange for committing or neglecting an act in violation of his/her duties either for his own benefit or for the benefit of any other person, entity or establishment.

IMTD mandates that all employees and other relevant stakeholders of the institution shall not directly or indirectly be involved in any of the following activities in exchange of any gift/benefits/ grants either in cash/kind.

• Sharing assignments under evaluation process;
• Leaking examination/ assignment papers before the scheduled date of assessment/ examination;
• Offering/promising/awarding undeserved grades;
• Offering/promising admission to any undeserving candidate;
• Offering/promising/awarding contracts to undeserving vendors;
• Offering/promising/awarding appointments to undeserving candidates;
• Offering/promising remission of disciplinary action;
• Any other related issues that breaches the policies of the institution regarding integrity, ethics (Section D of Faculty Manual and Appendix H of Staff Manual), nepotism-employment of relatives (Section 5J) and guidelines regarding conflict of interest (Section-10 A).Dealing with Government Departments/ Entities

Dealing with Government Departments/ Entities

IMTD mandates that only authorized employees shall deal with Government departments/ entities on its behalf. While dealing with Government departments/ entities the concerned employee shall comply with the requirements of Articles 234-239 of the UAE Federal Law 3/1987 and all other applicable UAE Laws and Regulations. In case of any confusion regarding any applicable laws and regulations, the concern employee should contact the Director for necessary clarifications. It is to emphasize that offering gift/benefit/other grant, whether directly or indirectly, to a public servant is a punishable offence under the UAE Federal Law 3/1987 which may lead to imprisonment.

Whistleblowing

IMTD supports all employees, students, vendors and other stakeholders to act as a whistleblower in case they suspect any instance of bribery and corruption or they are victim of bribery and corruption. They should immediately report the matter to the Director (whistle@imt.ac.ae). The Director shall not disclose the identity of any whistleblower and protect whistleblower from any vindictive action. In the case of bribery/ corruption involving the Director, the whistleblower may inform the matter to the Chairman BoG (chairbog@imt.ac.ae).

Due Diligence and Action

The following procedures shall be followed for conducting due diligence and necessary action in reported cases of corruption and bribery involving students, employees and third-party vendors:

• Cases of reported corruption/ bribery indulged by any student shall be referred to Student Grievance Committee (Section 1C.15). The committee shall carry out due diligence and submits its finding to the Director.
• Cases of reported corruption/ bribery indulged by any employee or any third-party vendor shall be referred to Employee Grievance Committee (Section 1C.18). The committee shall carry out due diligence and submits its finding to the Director.
• Cases of reported corruption/ bribery indulged by the Director/ any member of Advisory board/ any member of the BoG shall be referred to the BoG. The BoG shall carry out due diligence.

In case any member of the Student Grievance Committee/ Employee Grievance Committee is involved in the reported corruption/bribery case, he/she shall not be part of the committee till the matter is disposed of.

In consonance of the zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and bribery, the following actions shall be taken in the proven cases of corruption and bribery:

• Wherein a student is found to be guilty, he/she shall be suspended from the program and the matter shall be reported to the legal authorities;
• Wherein an employee/Director is found to be guilty, he/she shall be terminated from the employment and the matter shall be reported to the legal authorities;
• Wherein a third-party vendor is found to be guilty, all contracts with such vendor shall be cancelled and the matter shall be reported to the legal authorities;
• Wherein a member of the Advisory Board/ BoG is found to be guilty, he/she shall be removed from the board and the matter shall be reported to the legal authorities.

IMTD is committed to foster diverse, equitable and inclusive environment in its engagement with students, faculty, staff and other stakeholders. The institution endeavors to work together to address the challenges of the future by eliminating barriers to success and promoting a culture of compassion, inclusivity and mutual respect.

In adherence to this policy, it facilitates collaborative learning and research by multicultural students, faculty and staff and promotes welcoming learning environment for people of determination. In this regard the following specific policies are followed:

• Equal Opportunity Employer – In the recruitment, evaluation and promotion of faculty and staff, IMTD does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, nationality, religion, disability or any other non-permissible as stated in the Labour Law of the UAE. The same principle is followed in the case of engagement of any part-time faculty and staff.
• Student Admission – In the selection of the students, IMTD does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, nationality, religion, and disability.
• Provision for People of Determination – In Adherence to Article 12 of the UAE Federal Law No. 29 of 2006, IMTD provides equal opportunity to the people of determination in admission and learning. To this effect, it ensures that its facilities and physical resources including residence halls are friendly to the people of determination as required by the UAE Law. IMT ensures that all faculty and staff are trained to handle the need of student of determination.
• Community Engagement – IMTD promotes diversity through multi-culture and global outlook it its operations and dealings. It does not discriminate in selection of service provider based on race, colour, gender, nationality, religion, and disability.