When I taught CSCI 544 In Spring 2016, 13 students had their grades reduced for violations of academic integrity. This was highly distressing for both the students involved as well as the instructional staff, especially because the violations were detected at the end of the semester (many were in the final homework assignment). I am writing this note to let everyone know that I take academic integrity very seriously.
A memo from the vice dean sent to faculty last year noted that most reported violations fall under three categories:
The violations in my class were of the first two types – more specifically, students working together on homework assignments, and students copying code from online resources. The assignments where cheating occurred included the following notices:
Students must follow these guidelines, and any other instructions that are part of the assignments. Note that “You may not look for solutions” applies not just to verbatim copying of code, but to any attempt to find an external source for the solution. Sometimes students are unclear on the difference between using external resources for learning general language functionality (which is allowed), and looking for external solutions to the assignment. However, the boundary should be clear: consulting a resource to learn how to read and write files, perform bitwise math operations, increment an item in a dictionary, and so on are allowed; consulting an implementation of a Hidden Markov Model is not.
I report all academic integrity violations to the Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards (SJACS). I follow the university procedures to the letter: first I attempt to communicate with the student to ascertain whether a violation occurred, and if I determine that there was a violation, I file a report with SJACS together with a recommended penalty, and then wait for a final decision from SJACS. There will be no negotiation, no bargaining, no makeup assignments, and no informal resolutions in cases of academic integrity violations. Also, once a violation has been reported, the instructor may not assign a grade until the individual case is resolved by SJACS. Since the violations last year took place near the end of the semester, this meant that the grades of the students involved were delayed beyond the end of the semester.
I hope this note conveys the importance I attach to academic integrity, and the consequences for violating it. Let’s all work towards a productive, fruitful and honest semester.