<p>My S was accused of academic dishonesty for a take-home final exam. Work together was allowed. But now the professor said his answers and another students are similar, accused them academic dishonesty. </p>
<p>I am his parent. I trust my S, he had no intention to violate the school conduct code, he does not know how to draw the line, and what is the line.</p>
<p>I need some help to know what to do and how to proceed </p>
<p>Was there a written policy about what kind of collaboration was permitted? </p>
<p>Was this an essay, or was it a math/science kind of problem?</p>
<p>It was not written in syllabus. But one of the professor’s email does say encourage students work on concepts together. It was not an essay, it was short essay questions. Yes, it is science. In addition, his homework assignments, midterm and final are all short essay questions. Students can discuss questions with other classmates or ask TA or professor.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about your son, of course, but typically when such allegations are raised, the actual prose of the two students is similar. And that, I’m afraid, indicates that more than discussion between students was involved: one student saw the other student’s written answer and copied from it. And that will be considered academic dishonesty everywhere. Intentions of the student are not a defense; the student is responsible for knowing what plagiarism is.</p>
<p>If I were your son, I would want to know exactly what I was accused of and what the evidence was for the accusation. I would want to know what the procedure at his college was.</p>
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<p>By the time someone is in college, they should know how to draw the line and what is the line. </p>
<p>I agree with the above; all colleges have procedures for dealing with academic dishonesty. Your son needs to find out what the written policy of the school is, as well as be ready to provide documentation of what instructions the professor gave to the students regarding the take home test in question. </p>
<p>My S2 went through this last year and the 2 kids he worked on the problem with were his best buddies so he refused to believe that they would have copied his work. The prof was very disappointed that no one would come clean. All three kept insisting they did not “copy” anyone else’s work, but apparently was a duplicate was written in such a way that the chances that 3 people would come up with the exact same format were next to impossible. In the end she said “if it wasn’t for the fact that I trust Kajon’s son and know his work, I would fail all three of you.” Son got his grade reduced by one letter grade an the other two were reduced by 2 letter grades. No one complained. </p>
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Unfortunately, a lot of high school teachers are unable or unwilling to provide decent instruction in this. I personally find that a lot of students don’t completely understand that line until they’ve had freshman composition, and this includes a lot of otherwise excellent students. (I speculate that students who hand in a high school paper that looks fairly competent often get slipshod treatment because the teacher needs to spend so much more time marking up the really bad papers. I.e., good grammar = free pass.) The rampant copy-pasta that young people see on the Internet only reinforces bad habits.</p>
<p>Because of this, every professor who teaches a freshman-level class should make his/her expectations 100% clear. It’s so simple to write on an assignment page, “Even if you develop your ideas with other students, I expect you to compose every sentence of your paper on your own.”</p>
<p>Please note that I am not trying to excuse anyone’s behavior; nor do I think that every public school fails to teach students about academic integrity.</p>
<p>I agree with Wasatch that there are techniques for teachers of freshman-level classes to make their expectations 100% clear. However, this is not going to be a defense for the OP’s son. If he didn’t know where the line was, it was up to him to clarify the situation with the professor, rather than copying someone else’s work or allowing them to copy his.</p>
<p>Yes, Cardinal Fang, if the student had a question, he should ask. However, some students run into this type of problem and did not think that there even was an issue with the material submitted. Unfortunately for the student, even proof that there was not intent to do wrong will not be a defense to the charges. If the work looks too similar, most often the professor will prevail on this charge. Unless the student in this instance can show that he did not work with the other student at all, and that the answers are coincidentally alike, there would not seem much to work with.</p>
<p>What I think is problematic here is that the material at issue was a take home exam and that collaboration was allowed. Once you collaborate, it is hard to have original distinct answers. Once someone tells you what they think, you can not excise this from your thought processes. Of course the Harvard cheating scandal of 2012 involved a take home exam with similar answers found.</p>
<p>As a parent, it is your job to empower your son to act as his own advocate. He should request a meeting with the professor, and discuss the professor’s concerns. He should then process that conversation, and respond to it, either by accepting that his behavior was in error or by composing a reasoned defense.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, when things are similar and wrong, there is a greater likelihood that students collaborated more than is reasonable.</p>
<p>This can be a learning experience for your son either way.</p>
<p>Something similar happened to me in my senior year of college. In my case, it was not a take-home assignment but a final exam that my lab partner and I were accused of cheating on. Not only were we partners, but good friends who studied together A LOT. We did not sit near each other during the test, yet our answers to an all-essay exam were deemed too similar. We each had to go before a board of science profs to answer questions. In the end, it was determined that because my partner had a higher average going into the exam, his final exam would be reduced by one letter grade. Mine was reduced by two. The process was frustrating, but in the end I had to abide by the school’s policies, and at least I didn’t receive a failing grade.</p>
<p>I feel for your son, OP, and I hope his outcome will be fair to him. It is difficult to be accused (and found guilty) of something you didn’t do.</p>
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<p>I think that many of the “modern” teaching philosophy and methods invite these situations. </p>
<p>A lot of the “collaborative” work done in his school is done, in my opinion, to lower the teachers effort in evaluating individuals. And their overall workload. I’d like to see a school that forbids collaboration and makes testing take place in the classroom under monitored situations. </p>
<p>My S told me that he developed the take-home on his own, from version 1 to the final version. Without this take-home exam, he already had C in this class. I am pretty sure if it is in classroom test, the exam policy is clear to him. But this take-home was allowed to discuss with classmates.</p>
<p>How to proceed? What is the university doing? You didn’t say if he was facing an academic tribunal or if the professor was just lowering the grade, or what?</p>
<p>Whatever is happening to your son, he needs to be completely honest and explain his situation to the investigating body. I’m sure that the university also has an appeal process. Your job, as a parent, is to be supportive and help your son figure out how to proceed. Make sure he keeps all the notes that he studied from and keeps all correspondence about the incident. </p>
<p>If you haven’t read the student conduct handbook, I suggest that you do so. Usually, all students are expected to read the code of conduct as freshmen and then sign something to acknowledge that they’ve read it and agree to be bound by it. I doubt most students actually read it - but they do agree to be bound by it. </p>
<p>There’s a difference between “discussing the problem” and splitting the problems and then copying each other’s papers. One implies group discussion while the other implies only doing half the work. </p>
<p>It’s a very thin line though, so your son made an honest mistake. The repercussions usually are not severe. </p>
<p>He is very frustrated. As his parent, I dont know hot to empower him. He did contact his partner and concluded their works are not similar. He wrote his take-home on his own, did not copy anyone’s papers. </p>
<p>Did he keep copies of what he developed from version 1 to the final version?</p>
<p>Yes, I encouraged him to send them to his professor. Do you think it is right thing to do?</p>
<p>Yes - maybe that can help him prove his own sequence of work and work effort.</p>
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