The School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi operates under an Honor Code for undergraduate students, but graduate students fall under the University's general Academic Discipline policy. In general, a faculty member who believes that academic dishonesty has occurred has great latitude in assessing penalties such as additional work, failure of an assignment, or failure of a class; and may recommend suspension or dismissal. The student's appeal procedure is detailed in the M Book, and is employed when a student disagrees with the penalty and when suspension or dismissal is recommended.

The academic discipline procedure applies not only to cheating on a test, but encompasses plagiarism, illegally copying software, and intellectual property cases. Intellectual property issues include questions such as, "Who must be included as a co-author of a paper?" and "Who has the right to keep and use a computer program developed by a student working on an assistantship?". Because intellectual property cases may prove thorny, good communication between advisors and students is extremely important. Especially in cases where opinions differ, a dialogue that starts early may help avert heartbreaks, bad feelings, and formal procedures.

The easy accessibility of copiers makes plagiarism an increasingly observed phenomenon in graduate classes. If you copy a figure from a text, then you must attribute the source and make it clear that the figure is copied. If you copy sections or even one sentence word-for-word, then that text must be enclosed in quotation marks, the source referenced and the body of the text must attribute the source. If you paraphrase a work, then the source must be referenced.