Academic Integrity
SIC’s academic credibility rests on a simple promise: the work you submit is your work. This policy explains what original work means in the SIC context, how AI tools can and cannot be used, where team collaboration ends, what mentors are and are not permitted to do, and what happens if these rules are violated.
Original Work Requirement
Every submission you make to SIC — Junior weekly thesis logs, Senior strategy reports, Global Stage final entries, mentor office-hour materials — must be authored by you (or, for Senior teams, by the registered team members collaboratively). The four-axis rubric was built to evaluate your thinking under uncertainty, which means your submissions must reflect your reasoning, not someone else’s.
This applies to text, models, tables, charts, and analytical frameworks. If you adapt a framework you learned elsewhere (a DCF template, an ESG materiality matrix), apply it with your own judgment and cite the source — see §02 for citation requirements.
Plagiarism & Citation
Plagiarism — presenting another person’s words, analysis, or work as your own without acknowledgement — results in disqualification from the current season. This applies whether the source is a published research note, an online article, another SIC participant’s submission, or a peer’s draft.
- Direct quotation: use quotation marks and cite the source (author, publication, date, page where applicable).
- Paraphrase: rewrite in your own words and cite the source. Lightly reworded text without citation is still plagiarism.
- Data & tables: cite the source (filing, report, dataset). Reproducing a chart from a published research note without attribution is plagiarism.
- Frameworks: when you apply a published framework (e.g., Porter’s Five Forces), name the framework and its source.
AI-Tool Use & Disclosure
SIC permits the use of AI tools (large language models, AI-assisted research tools, AI-powered chart generators) for limited supporting purposes — provided their use is disclosed in your submission. AI cannot author your thesis or your judgment; it can assist with the work around your thesis.
Permitted uses (with disclosure):
- Grammar correction, language polishing, translation between English and Chinese.
- Data formatting (turning a screenshot of a table into a clean spreadsheet).
- Brainstorming counter-arguments to your thesis (to stress-test your reasoning).
- Summarizing primary-source documents you have read in full (not as a substitute for reading them).
Not permitted:
- Asking an AI to write your investment thesis or strategy report. The thesis must be authored by you.
- Using AI-generated analysis without independently verifying every factual claim and source.
- Submitting AI-generated text as your own (this is plagiarism — see §02).
- Using AI to circumvent the rubric — e.g., generating multiple thesis drafts and selecting the highest-scoring one without authoring the reasoning.
Team Boundaries (Senior Division)
Senior Division teams of two to four registered members may collaborate freely within the team — dividing research work, debating thesis structure, jointly authoring the strategy report. The team is the unit of work; individual members do not need to claim specific paragraphs.
Cross-team collaboration is not permitted. This includes:
- Sharing draft submissions between teams for review or feedback.
- Discussing thesis content with members of other registered SIC teams (in person, by message, or in any other form).
- Coordinated trading or thesis-alignment with other teams to inflate similarity or evade detection.
Discussing general program topics — rubric interpretation, simulator mechanics, time management — with other participants is permitted. The line is at sharing or aligning specific thesis content.
Mentor Relationship Boundaries
Mentors provide academic coaching: they ask questions, point to relevant primary sources, comment on thesis structure, and provide written rubric feedback. Mentors do not author your submission content.
Specifically:
- Mentors may suggest a stronger thesis framing — you must decide whether and how to adopt it.
- Mentors may indicate that a section is weak — you must rewrite it.
- Mentors may share their own analytical experience as context — you may not present that experience as your own analysis.
- Mentor draft reviews are clearly labeled in the program record; participants do not need to disclose mentor input in submissions (it is already on file).
Data Sourcing
The Evidence Quality rubric axis explicitly rewards primary sources. Required practice:
- Prefer primary sources: 10-K filings, regulatory disclosures, company-issued sustainability reports, peer-reviewed academic research.
- When using secondary sources (analyst notes, news articles), cite them but supplement with primary verification.
- Avoid third-hand summaries as sole evidence (e.g., social-media discussions of analyst notes).
- Do not fabricate sources or data. A single fabricated citation results in disqualification regardless of other submission quality.
Submission Authenticity
Each weekly Junior thesis log, each Senior submission milestone, and each Global Stage final entry is filed under your account (Junior) or your team’s workspace (Senior). The program desk records timestamps and authorship metadata on every submission.
If you complete a submission across multiple sessions, log progress as you go rather than backfilling a single large entry at the deadline — backfilled patterns are visible in metadata and prompt verification (§08).
Verification & Audits
The judging desk reserves the right to verify any submission’s authenticity at any point during or after the season. Verification methods include:
- Text-similarity checks against prior SIC submissions and major published research databases.
- Asking the participant or team to walk through their reasoning in a brief video or written follow-up — to confirm the thinking matches the submission.
- Review of submission metadata (timestamps, edit history, draft progression).
Verification is not punitive by default — many random audits are performed and most pass without issue. Participants are notified if their submission has been selected for verification.
Consequences
Violations of this policy are addressed proportionally:
- Minor disclosure failures (e.g., missing AI-use disclosure on a single submission) — submission is returned for completion; the participant adds the disclosure within a working week.
- Citation lapses or inadequate sourcing — written feedback on the affected submission’s rubric scorecard; lowered Axis 02 (Evidence Quality) score.
- Plagiarism, fabricated data, or undisclosed AI authoring of thesis content — disqualification from the current season.
- Coordinated cross-team violations, repeated offenses, or fraud — disqualification from the current season and a ban from future seasons.
Disqualified participants are notified privately. The program desk does not publish names of disqualified participants. Where institutional partners (schools) are involved in the participant’s intake, they may be notified at the program desk’s discretion.
Reporting Concerns
If you observe or experience a possible academic integrity violation — by another participant, a team you are part of, or any other party — please reach the SIC program desk via WhatsApp at the QR on our Contact page. Identify the concern as an integrity report; the advisor will route it confidentially to the judging desk.
Reports are handled confidentially. Reporter identity is not disclosed to the reported party. Retaliation against a good-faith reporter is itself a violation of this policy.