HeroX Intellectual Integrity Policy

HeroX recognizes that the sharing of ideas among innovators can be an important element in the formation of creative solutions.

It is often only through engaging with external knowledge that one discovers an entirely new way forward. Equal to this idea, however, is the importance of maintaining professional honesty, integrity, and proper citation in all work, both on HeroX and in the wider world. 

Therefore, by participating on the HeroX platform, all users must adhere to a strict integrity policy (The HeroX Intellectual Integrity Policy) in all HeroX spaces, including all submissions, pages and communications related to HeroX challenges both online and offline. Anyone who violates this integrity policy may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the HeroX team.

This integrity policy includes, but is not limited to, the following expectations:

• Users must clearly acknowledge or reference when they have relied upon or incorporated the work of others. 
• Users must take the utmost care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from the information they derive from sources. The term “sources” includes not only primary and secondary material published in print or online, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people. 
• This includes a need to reference significant collaboration with people who do not belong to the submitting user’s team. Users must also comply with all challenge-specific restrictions on collaboration.
• Furthermore, any and all quotations must be placed properly within quotation marks and must be cited in full. Additionally, all paraphrased material must be acknowledged completely and in a clear manner. 
• It is expected that all materials presented as the submitter’s or submitting team’s original work will be entirely their own and in no way “copied” from the work of others. Intellectual honesty is demanded of all HeroX users.
• Moreover, all data, information about submitting members, and evidence provided in support of a challenge submission must be truthful and accurate. Any instances of falsified data, authorship, and/or evidence demand grave concern.
• If particular methods and/or formats of citation and attribution are specified by the Challenge Sponsor, users must comply with the stated restrictions as far as they have been reasonably informed.

The responsibility for learning proper forms of citation lies with the submitting individual and all team members. Users should familiarize themselves with common citation expectations and methods to ensure full compliance with the HeroX expectations of clear and complete attribution. Users who have questions about the adequate level of citation expected for a challenge submission should contact the Challenge Sponsor to clarify their concerns.

Users whose challenge submission contains any content that is either not their own or lacks clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action. The same applies to any materials or communications in relation to the challenge that are found to be false or seriously misleading.

Consequences

HeroX reserves the right to determine and increase the extent of disciplinary action taken against users and teams who violate the integrity policy, but the following minimum actions may be taken in these situations:

• Any indication of "copying" amongst competitors is grounds for disqualification from the challenge in question and potentially any other challenges that have received submissions from the users in question.
• Minor infractions of the integrity policy will be reviewed by HeroX, potentially in consultation with the Challenge Sponsor, to determine if a ban from using the HeroX platform for one year, beginning on the date is disqualification, is necessary, in addition to the above penalties. Users found to have violated the integrity policy for an additional time may be subject to a longer or indefinite ban.
• Users found to have gravely and/or intentionally violated the HeroX integrity policy or to have illicitly collaborated across multiple submissions, teams, users, challenges, and/or accounts with the intention of manipulating or deceiving HeroX and/or the Challenge Sponsor(s) will be subject to an indefinite ban from the HeroX platform.

Additional disciplinary actions or responses to violations may be determined by HeroX on a case-by-case basis.

In total, HeroX hopes to promote the value and potential of crowdsourced innovation, but in doing so must also protect the intellectual integrity of all processes on the platform. Users who help defend the standard of conduct on HeroX, by creating submissions compliant with the highest forms of intellectual honesty and integrity, lead the charge for defining crowdsourcing’s place in the world of innovation. Adherence to the HeroX Intellectual Integrity Policy is designed to not only protect the integrity of this crowdsourcing system but also to elevate the professional quality of every user’s submission. For this reason, HeroX encourages and thanks all of its users for their adoption of this standard.