Advice on academic integrity issue

Parents Forum
1

D in college got a letter of reprimand for violating academic integrity policy. The story - She was assigned a ten page rough draft - ungraded but required for getting feedback from the TA (towards a final 20 page paper) and used part of her paper from a previous course. She was going to tell the TA in their in-person meeting that she used a previous paper for the draft but got reported before she could meet. She wants to go through the next step of appealling to a committee of minimum of 4 faculty and 1 student. Does she have a case strong enough for the appeals committee to overthrow the dean’s decision ?

In my opinion her case strengths are -

  1. Since it is an ungraded assignment (no credit towards the overall grade. Needed only for feedback from TA), and she has an ok from the prof earlier to elaborate on her previous work, she took it lightly and was in a hurry to send in something. Since it is not the final paper, it should not be considered double-dipping.
  2. Dean said that it would not have been a problem if she had mentioned in the email to TA that previous work is being used
  3. TA is ready to be a witness at the appeals committee and say that because of their cordial relationship she believes that D would have told her this in person

Has anyone gone through a similar situation? What is the best way of presenting this case? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

2

What’s the penalty for getting a reprimand? They’re not flunking her are they???

3

@blossom, no they are not flunking her (one letter grade reduction in that course) but she is afraid it could affect her chances for postgrad and worried about having it on her record

4

I guess I have a problem when that is considered an academic integrity issue - using Your Own work that belongs to noone. Has anyone seen papers from PhDs that start with their thesis work and then add to it? Oy.

OP, I think you’ve cogently put it all together. Have your D use that as her roadmap for the appeal.

5

The important conversation was the one with the professor in which you say she got an “ok to elaborate on her previous work”. “Elaborate” implies taking a topic she had done previous research or writing on and doing more in depth research or writing. It doesn’t mean submitting any portion of the earlier work. But the question really lies with what was said and what the professor explained or approved in that conversation. So what is the professor’s role in this proceeding? You say the TA is willing to put in a good word about your daughter’s intent, but you don’t mention the professor.

6

Not that it matters, but if the TA and the Professor didn’t report her, who did?

Was the entire 10 pages from the earlier work?

7

@“Erin’s Dad” I had the same initial reaction and did not even know self plagiarism is an issue. But unfortunately the university policy states that you cannot reuse your work if you got credit for it in another course.
@profparent, yes, the professor clearly gave permission to ‘elaborate’ on the existing work not to reuse it. So it is D’s mistake to do so without taking permission. She assumed it is ok to use since it is not a graded assignment :frowning: The sad part is the prof is sympathetic towards her and offered to give a reco letter for future pursuits but is not allowed participate in the appeal process.

8

@Madison85, Prof is the one who reported. According to the prof, once it is flagged she is obligated to report. The original work is 5 pages, the draft was 10 pages and the final paper is expected to be 20 pages

9

But who/what flagged it?

Plagiarism software?

10

@Madison85, yes, TurnItIn software

11

IMO if she mentioned it to the prof.and got permission to expand on prior work, then the TA should have been made aware of the situation. I think my first step would be to go talk to the professor, remind him/her of the conversation, and the professor can clear this up without even having the full hearing. In addition, I never would have considered it an academic integrity issue to expand upon one’s prior work and would not accept the one letter drop in grade without pursuing all options.

12

Wow. If nothing else, this is a good warning. I had no idea this was “a thing”! Good luck!

13

It seems unfair that the professor cannot participate in the appeal process if the professor is sympathetic. That suggests that the professor feels it was an honest mistake, with no intention to mislead. While clearly a violation of the policy, it seems to be on the less serious end of the spectrum, and she should take comfort that the professor has given a vote of confidence by offering a later recommendation. I have no suggestions for approaches to the appeal beyond the obvious–take responsibility for the mistake, assure them she didn’t realize her behavior was in violation of the university policy but does now, don’t make excuses or seem resentful or entitled.

14

So, wait a minute. The original work that was graded was 5 pages. What she submitted was 10 pages. The final will be 20 pages. I’d say that qualifies as “elaborating on her previous work” – it’s not like she just submitted what she’d previously done and didn’t add anything to it. To me this seems ridiculous, especially because it is an ungraded assignment and was submitted for the express purpose of getting feedback from the TA … there is a reasonable assumption of a conversation there (as in, “This was flagged by TurnItIn as being previous work, care to explain?” “Yes, I got permission from Prof. X to use this work I did for his class as the basis for this paper.” “Well, to do so, you’ll really need to do x, y, and z for it to qualify as new work and not just submitting old work…”).

15

Thank you for sharing. I don’t have any advice. I was not aware you could plagiarize your own work.

16

Thanks everyone for the responses, advice and the support
@happy1 , she was asked by the dean not to contact the prof in this matter and did not want to break any rules especially when she is in trouble with adminstration. Also since prof is the one who actually reported, we figured she would consider this not expanding on the previous work but rather reuse of the paper.
@profparent , I feel that the prof thinks it is an honest mistake but still is a policy violation and since letter of reprimand is the lowest possible sanction she thinks it is justified.
@ailinsh1 , yes, I too would not have guessed that using a 5 page paper to write a 10 page paper with an intention of expanding to a 20 page paper for final graded submission would become an issue

In the appeal, would you think the argument that - even though when flagged, original paper is 50% it would only be 25% (5 pages out of 20 pages) of the final paper that would be graded. Do you think they would understand the logic there and not harp about it being 50% of the paper when cited. My daughter thinks that the above argument would not fly. So trying to see what the general opinion would be

17

Reporting on an ungraded draft seems excessive to me, but each institution is entitled to its own rules. In my classes, I use the Turnitin flags on preliminary drafts as an advisory tool, and speak individually with the student first. I will have them resubmit the draft in such a case. I really hate the use of Turnitin as a Big Brother Policeman utility- the students are supposed to “turn in” papers; it’s not for professors to “turn in” students. The letter of reprimand is based solely on the Turnitin software flags? Not sure if it can be used that way - wonder how the college’s lawyers would let that go through. At my institution, we have to submit a lot more evidence before any reprimand is written up.

Re: the appeal question: I don’t think that the appeal argument that it’s only 25% of the final paper would fly. I would recommend something along the lines of owning up to the mistake(as @profparent suggests), and not trying to rationalize it

18

I would take the approach of thanking them for the feedback on the ungraded draft with regard to the use of previous work and propose that you throw out the 5 pages that were re-used before turning in the final draft. This would be akin to thanking them for the feedback that 5 pages of your paper were really awful and should be thrown out before turning in the final.

19

I would argue that:

-The entirety of the paper is her own work

-Your D spoke to the prof. in advance and got approval to expand upon her prior work. She felt that what she included was necessary to set the stage for the rest of her paper.

-She did not feel the need to re-work her prior paper for an ungraded draft. If the idea of this draft was to give the TA an indication of what her paper would be like, then that that is what she did.

–She an say that when her final paper was fully formed she planned to go back and do an extensive re-write of that section. But at this early point, for an ungraded half-draft, it seemed unnecessary.

-I would tell her to be firm in saying that she felt she had approval from the prof. to go this route, that they need to keep in mind that all this fuss is about an ungraded draft and not a final paper,

-If the TA had come to her first she believes the problem could have been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, even if it meant talking to the professor and her doing a re-write if necessary.

-She can mention that she understood that her prior work was on “turnitin.com” and if she thought there would be any issue that she would have been smart enough to change words/phrases here and there and move some things around so it would not pop up as a problem. Again, she did not consider using her own work with what she thought was the approval of the professor as plagiarism.

-She can apologize if she misunderstood the professors approval or the purpose of this assignment but should be strong in saying that she does not feel that her academic integrity should be tarnished by this.

I don’t know if this should be part of her argument, but this type of thing is done all the time in academic work. Professors use research they have done and put it into an article, they pull from an article they wrote and turn it into a book etc.

With all the problems going on with many young people and throughout the world, I can’t imagine why they are making such a big deal of this. If this is the “worst” thing your D ever does (and again, I don’t get why it is such a big problem), then you have raised a terrific young lady with her head screwed on straight. However this turns out, be sure you and your D remember that.

20

Sorry, but I think reuse of the paper (copying and pasting with maybe minor adjustments) is a form of cheating. I understand she talked with the professor though, and there seemed to have been a misunderstanding between them about what “elaborate” meant. For this draft, everyone else in the class had to write 10 pages and she only wrote 5. She has definitely made things easy for herself in a way that doesn’t seem okay. This may be an honest mistake but I think it would be clear to anyone that making a given assignment that much more easy for oneself would be an ethical problem.

And why did she choose the same topic for this class as for another? That doesn’t seem right at all, but there must be a reason the professor okayed it. I cannot believe any professor would give the impression that it is okay to actually USE the previous paper though. Sorry!