Academic Integrity Policy
Last updated: May 24, 2025
CourseCat does not condone cheating in any form.
Any content, account, or submission that facilitates academic dishonesty will be permanently removed from the platform, and the associated account will be banned immediately with no appeal. This is a zero-tolerance policy.
Our Stance
CourseCat exists to help Portola High students make smarter, more informed course selections — not to give anyone an unfair advantage over their classmates. We believe in honest effort, academic integrity, and the trust that teachers and students place in each other every day. Cheating undermines all of that, and it has no place on this platform.
Every piece of content on CourseCat — course reviews, unit breakdowns, study tips — is meant to help you prepare and study better, not to replace your own learning or give you access to materials you shouldn't have.
What Counts as a Violation
The following are strictly prohibited on CourseCat and will result in immediate removal and permanent account ban:
- Posting or sharing actual test questions, quiz questions, exam prompts, or answer keys — whether from memory or photographs.
- Sharing specific graded assignment questions or essay prompts that are meant to be individual assessments.
- Submitting study "tips" that amount to leaked answers or solutions to graded work.
- Using the platform to coordinate cheating, unauthorized collaboration, or plagiarism with other students.
- Submitting content intended to give specific students an unfair advantage in current or future assessments.
- Encouraging, organizing, or facilitating contract cheating (paying or trading work for completion of assignments).
What Is Allowed
CourseCat is built around helpful, honest student perspectives. The following are encouraged and are exactly what our platform is here for:
- Sharing your honest assessment of a course's difficulty, workload, and pacing.
- Describing the general topics covered in a unit (e.g., "Unit 6 covers integration by parts and U-substitution").
- Recommending publicly available study resources (Khan Academy, textbook chapters, YouTube videos).
- Sharing general exam strategy and study habits (e.g., "practice FRQs weekly, don't leave Taylor series to the last week").
- Describing the style of assessments in general terms (e.g., "tests are mostly multiple choice with a short essay").
Enforcement
We take academic integrity violations seriously. When a violation is identified:
- The offending content is removed immediately and permanently from the platform.
- The responsible account is permanently banned with no appeal process.
- In serious cases involving organized cheating schemes, we reserve the right to report the incident to school administration.
Report a Violation
If you see content on CourseCat that you believe violates this policy — a leaked test question, a suspicious submission, or anything that feels wrong — please report it to the TechPreneurs team right away. We rely on our community to keep this platform clean and trustworthy for every Bulldog.
Reports are confidential. You will never be identified as the person who flagged content.
A Note from the TechPreneurs
We built CourseCat because we were frustrated by how little real information there was about courses at PHS. We wanted every student — regardless of who they know — to have access to honest, senior-level advice about classes. That mission only works if the content here is trustworthy. Cheating destroys that trust, and we won't allow it.
Study smart. Ask questions. Use CourseCat to prepare — but do the work yourself. That's the only grade that actually counts.
— The TechPreneurs