| Honor Council Rice University |
Case #3, Fall 1992 Abstract of the Honor Council November 30, 1992
Members present: Suzanne Angele, Tobey Blanton, Andra Blomkalns, Sam Cole, Marc Elliott, Crystal Gobble, Larkin McReynolds, Jeff Nichols, and Steve Tran.
Ombudsman: Katie Krolikowski and Lan Huynh (observing)
The Honor Council received a letter of accusation from a grader of a lower level science course. In this letter, the grader requested that the Honor Council conduct an investigation to determine whether a violation of the Honor Code had occurred on a homework set between two students. The letter of accusation stated that identical phrasing and awkward notation that appeared on the two papers were the reasons for the submission of this accusation. The two students will henceforth be referred to as Student A and Student B.
Both Student A and Student B entered pleas of not guilty.
Student B began with his opening statement. He explained that he and two other students, including Student A, often work together on the homework for this course. For this particular homework assignment, the three students had been working in the library. Once the group reached the correct numerical answer for the problem, Student B and the other student left the library. A few hours later, the three students were working together on another assignment for another class. At this point Student A requested that the third student turn in his homework because he was going to be unable to attend class on the day that the homework was due. Student B then stated that he looked at Student A's homework assignment to compare the procedural explanations that Student A had written down. It should be noted that merely arriving at the correct numerical answer for this homework problem was not sufficient for full credit on the assignment; students were required to explain how they hadarrived at their answer.
In his opening statement, Student A reiterated that they had worked together on the homework problem until they had arrived at a numerical answer. He then testified that he had indeed given his homework to the third student to turn in for him because he was to be unable to attend class on the day on which the homework was to be handed in.
The Council then began questioning the accused. First the Council asked the accused about the similar format that they had used. Student B entered his notebook as evidence at this point. He specifically wanted to point out to the Council that the format that they had used to work the problem was drawn directly from the notes taken in lecture. He also explained that any other similarities in form could be directly attributed to the fact that they both were educated in a foreign country and that they had received the same orientation to the English/American system of notation. Student A concurred. The Council then began questioning Student B about what exactly he had changed on his own paper after looking at the paper of Student A. Student B replied that he had only added a few phrases to his procedural explanation. He said that he felt that Student A's explanations seemed to be more clear than his own and because of his lack of confidence in his English ability, he decided to clarify his own statements based on Student A's statements.
The grader for this course was then sworn in as a witness. He first explained that he had originally submitted these homeworks to the Council because he felt that the identical presentation and the awkward phrasing of the papers warranted an Honor Council inquiry. He then explained that properly explaining the procedure used to arrive at the numerical answer was a significant portion of the credit for the problem.
After the grader left, the accused brought in as a witness the third student who had worked on this assignment with them. He corroboratedthe story about working in the library and arriving at the correct numerical answer before leaving the library. He also testified that he agreed to turn in Student A's homework for him.
After this witness had left the room, the accused began their closing statements. Student B once again explained that he did not copy the problem of Student A. He emphasized that he had only clarified his procedural explanation by looking at the paper of Student A. Since they had both worked on the problem together, he felt that borrowing part of the explanation from Student A was merely a form of working together which was explicitly allowed and even recommended by the Honor Code policy for the class.
The accused then left the room and the Council began the deliberation process. Several members of the Council felt that since Student B had admitted to borrowing the words of Student A and since the procedural explanations were a significant portion of the graded parts of this homework assignment, Student B had committed a violation. The relevance to the graded portion of the comments included with the numerical portion of the problem was then discussed. A straw poll was then taken.
Straw Poll #1 Student A
Not Guilty 8
Guilty 0
Abstentions 1
Straw Poll #2 Student A
Not Guilty 9
Guilty 0
Abstentions 0
This vote was made binding.
Straw Poll #1 Student B
Not Guilty 1
Guilty 7
Abstentions 1
Discussion about Student B was then initiated. Some members of the Council felt that since the numerical portion of the problem had been completed in a joint effort, the explanation portion of the problem had also been a joint effort and that the information contained in the procedural explanation was a matter of common knowledge. Other members, however, felt that although the two students had worked together on the problem and obviously agreed on procedure for working the problem, the fact that Student B had copied the words of Student A without his knowledge constituted a type of plagiarism.
Straw Poll #2 Student B
Not Guilty 0
Guilty 8
Abstentions 1
At this point the abstaining member was given an opportunity to state his reasons for abstaining. Members of the Council were given the opportunity to reiterate their reasons for voting as they had. After further discussions of the arguments both in favor and not in favor of Student B another straw poll was taken.
Straw Poll #3 Student B
Not Guilty 1
Guilty 8
Abstentions 0
This vote was made binding. Thus, the Honor Council finds both Student A and Student B not guilty of Honor Code violations.
Respectfully submitted,
Crystal Gobble Trial Clerk