Plagiarism and AI at ASU: the XE grade, and who has to prove it

The short answer

ASU can mark a failure on your transcript as academic dishonesty — an XE — and it normally stays there permanently. There is a petition route after 12 months, at the Dean’s discretion.

The counterweight is unusually clearly stated: the burden of proving dishonesty sits with your instructor, not with you.

The XE grade

ASU’s sanction list runs from a reduced or failing grade for the assignment or course, through withdrawal of previously accepted credit and suspension, to “expulsion from the University without expectation of readmission”. In the middle sits the one with the longest tail:

“An XE grade” — failure due to academic dishonesty. “Generally, the XE grade will remain on the transcript permanently.”

Three consequences follow, and two of them are immediate:

• It is treated as an E for GPA, so it damages your average like any failing grade.
• While you carry one, you may not represent the university in extracurricular activities or hold student office.
• It is visible on the transcript to anyone you show it to, unless it is removed.

The removal route matters and is easy to miss: after 12 months you may petition the Dean to have the XE removed and replaced with an ordinary E. It is discretionary, so it is not a guarantee — but it is a reason to keep your record clean afterwards and to diarise the date.

For comparison within this series: Penn State’s equivalent X is capped at two years by rule; UCF’s Z designation becomes permanent after a second finding; Liberty applies no notation at all. ASU’s default is permanence with a discretionary way out.

Your instructor has to prove it

This sentence is worth carrying into any meeting about a case:

“The Instructor shall have the burden of showing it is more likely than not that the student engaged in Academic Dishonesty.”

Two things are packed in there. The standard is preponderance — more likely than not, not certainty. And the burden is expressly on the instructor. You are not required to prove you wrote it.

That said, the fastest way to end a case is still to show your process: drafts, dated version history, notes, the email where you asked whether a tool was allowed. Our guides on proving you wrote it yourself and what to do when you are accused cover what to assemble.

If a detector score is what started this, our guide to an AI detector flagging your thesis sets out what that number does and does not establish on its own.

The appeal is heard by a College or School Academic Integrity Board made up of faculty plus at least one student. Where suspension or expulsion is recommended, there is a further appeal to the Provost, reviewed by a three-member University Academic Integrity Hearing Board that also includes a student.

Each ASU college has a named Academic Integrity Officer, and they are listed publicly. If a case starts, that is the person who runs the process — worth knowing who yours is.

The deadlines

ASU’s timetable is short at the start and long in the middle:

• The Academic Integrity Officer gives you a summary and 5 business days to respond.
• You may appeal to the Dean within 10 business days.
• The Dean issues a written decision within 20 business days.
• A suspension or expulsion recommendation can be appealed to the Provost within a further 10 business days.

Five business days is not long to gather evidence and write a considered response. If a notification arrives, start pulling together your version history that day rather than at the end of the week.

The policy does not mention AI

This is worth being precise about, because it determines what actually binds you.

The ASU Student Academic Integrity Policy defines “Academic Deceit” as “any deceptive or fraudulent act that creates or attempts to create an advantage or disadvantage for any member of the academic community”, and prohibits, among other things:

“Using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, sources, technologies, devices, or persons in connection with a course or an Academic Evaluation.”

It does not mention artificial intelligence, generative AI, ChatGPT or large language models anywhere. AI is caught, if at all, by the word “technologies” — and by the word “unauthorized”, which is where the real work happens.

The practical consequence: at ASU your course is the rule. Whether a tool is authorised is a question for the syllabus and the instructor, and there is no university-wide answer to fall back on. If your syllabus is silent, ask in writing and keep the reply — that email is the difference between authorised and unauthorized.

ASU publishes no required AI disclosure form either, so if you have used a permitted tool and want to be transparent, our AI disclosure statement guide covers what a good acknowledgement contains.

Also worth knowing: reusing your own work is on the prohibited list — “using or attempting to use one’s own work produced for another purpose”.

What ASU does not publish

We would rather tell you what is missing than fill it with guesses. On ASU’s public integrity pages we could not establish:

• Any position on AI detection.The provost’s faculty resources page names Turnitin — “use plagiarism detection software (Turn It In) within Canvas and notify students in advance that this will be used” — for plagiarism only, and mentions AI detection nowhere. ASU’s digital-learning centre published an article on teaching in the age of AI in October 2025 that discusses assessment design and does not mention detection tools at all. So we cannot tell you whether the AI indicator is on or off.
• Any student self-check route. Turnitin is described only as something faculty use.
• Any repository or retention statement, and no opt-out.
• Any annual case counts.
• An effective date, a revision date, or an approving body for the integrity policy itself. The same is true of the Student Honor Code. For documents that can permanently mark a transcript, that is a real gap, and it is worth asking your Academic Integrity Officer which version applies to you.

On what a similarity score can and cannot show — since Turnitin is the one tool ASU does name — see what a Turnitin score actually means and how accurate AI detectors really are. The same limit applies to our own tool: our published error rates are measured on English and German corpora, and no detector produces proof.

Before you submit

• Get AI permission from your instructor in writing. The policy gives you nothing to rely on; the syllabus does.
• Do not reuse your own earlier work without permission — it is separately prohibited.
• Keep drafts and version history. Your instructor carries the burden, but evidence ends a case faster than an argument about who carries what.
• If a notice arrives, note the five business days and start immediately.
• If you receive an XE, diarise twelve months. That is when a petition becomes possible.

If you want a read on your own text before you hand it in, our AI check is free up to 1,500 words, with no account and no name.

Sources

• Arizona State University: Student Academic Integrity Policy — the page states no effective date, no revision date and no approving body.
• Arizona State University: Student Honor Code — also undated.
• Arizona State University: Academic integrity: faculty resources — the only page naming a detection tool; carries no date.
• Arizona State University: Academic Integrity Officers.

This page is orientation, not legal advice. What binds you is your syllabus and the ASU Student Academic Integrity Policy.