I’m currently a student in UMass Amherst trying to be a computer scientist. I worked on a project for my class a three weeks ago and the teacher called me to talk about being suspected of academic dishonesty. For the project, I just went to the tutors in the library and did not cheat off of anyone. But some other person has very similar answers to me for about 30% of the project. That person actually turns out to be my friend who I helped with. I only helped him with the intention of helping not with the intention of cheating. I didn’t even let him look at my project. I just told him how I approached the problem.
Should I come forward to the teacher about this and will it help my case for not getting a formal charge and instead get an informal one?
In these cases you have to be aggressive to protect yourself. For all you know, your friend told the teacher that he was trying to help you, and that you cheated off of him.
I don’t think that he met with the teacher yet, but do you suggest that I meet with the teacher as soon as possible and tell him that i know who it is and why?
This also is a good opportunity for you to open up the discussion with the instructor about the best ways to determine when a project is to be solely your work (as in you are not to consult anyone else), when you are permitted or encouraged to consult with others and if/how you are expected to credit their contributions (for example do you need to include a full list of references for your reading and is there a preferred format for referencing personal communications), and when a project is expected to be a team effort. Unfortunately, instructors do not always make explicit distinctions between these situations, so you do need to learn how to determine which situation you are actually in for each assignment that each instructor gives you.
Yet schools try to extol teamwork…
Me and my friend are coming forward to the teacher that I helped him out. Will this help our case by admitting that I helped but not with the intention of cheating? For all the other projects we did it ourselves. He just needed help with that one and I offered my assistance.
Is there a specific policy against working together on homework? Working together on homework isn’t typically discouraged in my experience. Many professors actively ENCOURAGE it. There is however a difference between collaborating on an assignment, and one person copying the assignment from the other. It sounds like this was more of a collaboration. I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to explain you own take of the situation. Some of these points should be brought up.
You have to be really careful when you collaborate with someone because it can be looked like one person was cheating off another and vice versa.
Unless it’s a group project, I don’t do homework with someone; in fact I m a kind of person who doesn’t believe in study group.
I have a friend who majored in computer science, who told me that they were often told they were not allowed to collaborate or work together on assignments because of this exact situation. I thought it was crazy when she told me that (that students couldn’t help each other, even if they never actually see each other’s code), but I suppose this kind of situation comes up and they want to do their best to prevent it.
If they didn’t say anything about not being allowed to help each other, then I would just be up front about it. You didn’t think it was cheating, and it’s not something that is typically considered cheating. It’s reasonable that you didn’t know this was against the rules if nothing was ever said about it. If there was something about not being allowed to discuss the assignments mentioned in class or on the syllabus, then it would be considered academic dishonesty.