| Honor Council Rice University |
Abstract of the Honor Council
Case # 14 , Spring 1996
May 7, 1996
Members present: John Doll, Carolyn Gill, Dan Grossman, Courtney Kelso,
Lauren Kern (presiding), Ron- Li Liaw, Michael Munson, Thomas Page, Floyd
Walker, Noah Shapiro (observing),
Ombudsman: Emily Johnson, Daniel Whiteson (observing)
Letter of Accusation
The Honor Council received a letter of accusation from the Professor of a
lower-level humanities class. The letter explained that the professor had
noticed that the accused had turned in a term paper that was identical to
a paper in the same class turned in the year before.
Evidence Submitted
Paper turned in by the accused and the matching previous paper
The accused's paper outline and handwritten notes Paper D: Paper
found in accused's backpack during investigation
Paper A: Hard copy of paper on computer disk as titled Name of Course, #
Paper B: Hard copy of paper on disk in file "Course A", which was
in folder "Course A",
which was in folder entitled "Folder B"
Investigator's handwritten notes taken while looking up papers A and B on
computer disk
Deposition of Student B
Plea
Student A (the accused) entered a plea of Not In Violation.
Opening Statement
Student A explained that upon receiving the assignment for the class, she
approached Student B to see a copy of her paper because the accused knew
that Student B had written on the same topic. Student B gave Student A a
disk with a rough draft of her paper written for the same class during
Spring 1995 term. The accused saved Student B's paper onto her disk
entitled Paper A. The accused worked on the paper throughout the
semester, and the night before it was due, she completed it and gave the
disk to her friend, who was to take it home to her printer and print it
out on her computer in the morning. Student A's friend printed it out for
her and Student A picked it up the next morning and turned it in. Her
friend didn't know that Student A's paper was in a folder entitled Paper
A, within the folder entitled "Folder B". Student A claims that she
printed the wrong paper and she turned in another student's term paper by
accident. She states that because she believed the work to be her own,
she did not violate the Honor Code. Student A stated that there was
merely a mistake, and asked that the Council help her to correct it.
Questioning
Student A was asked why she had not printed the paper at her house, she
stated that she was working with a computer at home that didn't have a
printer. Her friend did have a printer and had agreed to print it out for
her the next morning. She stated that she was in a hurry to get to class
that morning because she had a test in that class. She didn't look at the
paper before she turned it in. She called her friend that morning and
asked her to make a cover page for it. When asked how she got her title
for the paper, she stated that she gets them from her conclusions. She
said that she looked through Student B's paper once or twice early in the
semester, but soon forgot about it when she began to write her paper in
March. She said that she only looked at Student B's paper and made no
changes.
When asked to describe the setup of the folders, she explained that she
had copied Student B's paper on to her hard disk already entitled Paper
A. She stated that most of the work that she saves off of her computer
goes into her file labeled Folder B, and she saved her own paper as Paper
A under the file Folder B. Student B's paper was a rough draft, according
to Student A, so the paper that Student A turned in by accident was
slightly different than Student B's.
Witness 1 -- Accused's friend
The witness was asked to describe the night before the paper was due, and
she said that she had been at the accused's house until about 10 PM. She
was studying for a test after making a few changes to her paper, and she
ejected the disk containing both her paper and the reference paper, and
asked her to take it home and print the paper for her. The accused called
her friend the next morning and asked that she make the title page and
staple the paper together for her. Student A provided her with the title.
The friend never looked at the paper, she just pulled it up and printed
it along with the title page which she had made as a new document. She
stated that Student A was in a rush to get to the test and she didn't see
her look through the paper at all.
Further Questioning
Student A was asked to describe the approach she took on the paper and
explain how it was different from Student B's. She explained that she
liked to use more current information such as periodicals. She stated
that the only reason she looked at Student B's paper was for guidance
about what to include in the paper. She also explains that she usually
names papers on her disks by the name of the course and the number (here
described as Paper A). She stated that after initially looking at Student
B's paper, she never looked at it again. Student A stated that she
started on the paper in early March and updated and modified as she went
along.
Witness 2-- Professor of Course
When the professor was asked how she realized that the paper was a
duplicate, she responded that she had a stack of last year's papers of
the same general topic area, and whenever a student in her class picked
the option as their general area of paper topic, she checked it against
the stack of last year's papers. She found Student A's paper to be an
exact duplicate of Student B's. The professor was asked how she presented
the assignment to the class and she said that it was located on the
syllabus and she also gave her students a separate paper explaining the
requirements. The professor was then asked if the accused had talked to
her about her chosen topic or the assignment in general, and she said she
hadnUt When handed the new paper that the accused claims was her original
intended paper, the professor stated that she had never seen it before,
she had only seen the duplicate copy of Student B's paper that Student A
had turned in.
The professor was then asked to describe the test that was given the day
the paper was due. She said that it was not a cumulative test; it only
covered a third of the course material. She had granted several
extensions and the paper was not really due until the next day at 5:00.
Further Questioning
The accused wished to call a discrepancy to the former witness's
testimony. She said that she had mentioned her topic to the professor and
they had briefly spoken about it. When asked why she didn't just turn in
the paper on Friday if she was in a rush, she said that she couldn't come
to school on Friday so that was her only opportunity to turn it in. She
also stated that she didn't realize the mistake had been made until the
investigation when she looked at her paper and realized that it indeed
was not her.
During the investigation, Student A produced a hard copy rough draft of
the paper she had meant to turn in. When asked if she had made changes
since then, she said that
she had. When asked why the date on the paper was 4 days before the
actual due date of the paper, she replied that she couldn't explain it.
Witness 3-- Computer Expert
Student A's computer disk was given to the computer expert. The computer
displayed the contents of the disk as many files, one of which was a
folder entitled Paper A, and also one entitled Folder B. She showed the
council that alter opening Folder B, there was a file within the folder
entitled also entitled Paper A. When asked to access the creation and
modification dates for both the desktop version of Paper A and the file
Paper A within Folder B, the council saw that the desktop Paper A was
created and last modified in 1995. It was shown that it was last printed
on the date that the paper had on it. The second Paper A was created
early in the semester and was modified up until 2 days before the due
date of the paper. The date last printed was not available. It showed
that the total editing time for the document was 6 minutes.
The witness showed how these statistic tags could be changed, but when
she searched through the unchangeable record, all statistics were shown
not to have been altered in any way. The witness stated that it was
possible to change the computer's system clock in order to change the
statistics, and she also pointed out that if the system clock was wrong
this would explain the wrong date on the paper title page. The council
inquired about the editing time of 6 minutes and asked if this could be
explained if the paper had been worked on for so long. The witness stated
that if the data was corrupt on the disk, then this information could be
incorrect, but since each statistic (date created, modified, and printed)
was independent of each other, then it also could be a correct
representation of editing time. She offered the scenario that the paper
could have been saved again as a Rough Draft and then only been modified
for 6 minutes alter that.
Further Questioning
When asked if she could explain why the date on the paper was wrong, the
accused stated that she had no explanation for this 4 day difference in
the date.
Closing Statement
Student A stated that she started to work on her own paper after copying
Student B's paper for reference on her computer disk early in the
semester. Her friend accidentally printed the wrong paper when she was
asked to print it for the accused. Student A said that all the evidence
pointed out that this was just a mistake and she felt that no violation
had occurred because she had thought the work that she turned in was her own.
Deliberation
There was general agreement among council members that if work is turned
in as a Student's own, and it is really someone else's work, even if by
mistake, this is still a violation. A straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #1
In Violation 9
Not In Violation 0
Abstentions 1 observing
When asked the reason for the abstention, the observing council member
felt that since this was her first trial to observe, she felt like she
shouldn't vote until she had more experience.
Thus, the council finds Student A In Violation of the Honor System.
Penalty Deliberation
Because the paper was worth 25% of the total grade, the consensus penalty
is an F in the course and a two semester suspension. Most members felt
that this penalty was too harsh. A council member proposed No Penalty
because she believed that this was merely a mistake and Student A had no
intention of misrepresenting her work. Another member disagreed and said
that the failure to look at the paper before turning it in, after asking
someone else to print the paper off of a disk, knowing another paper
existed with the same name on the disk, was extremely negligent
Disagreement on the severity of the violation began, and another member
proposed that the course should be re averaged without the assignment But
most members believed that she had forgotten about the other paper on her
disk so this really was not gross negligence.
A council member felt that a mistake and negligence of this magnitude
warrants loss of credit on the assignment, so a 0 on the Paper Penalty
was proposed. While many felt that a zero on the paper did not accurately
reflect the amount of work the accused spent on the paper over the course
of the semester, they also felt that the re averaging without the
assignment penalty was not enough sanction for violating the code. In
compromise, a member proposed a loss of 1/2 credit on the assignment
worth 25%, thus making the assignment worth 12 1/2%. Another straw poll was
taken:
Straw Poll #2
F/2 0
0 on Paper 2
1/2 Credit on Paper 4
Re averaging Without the Assignment 0
No Penalty 2 (+1 observing)
Abstentions 1
When asked the reason for abstention, the council member said that she
believes that a penalty should be imposed, that loss of credit on the
paper is too severe, but that half credit on the assignment was
arbitrary. Another penalty was proposed: Drop in One Letter Grade of the
Paper. Discussion ensued about exactly how severe a penalty should be for
turning in someone else's paper. Another straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #3
0 on Paper 2
1/2 Credit on the Assignment 4
Drop in Letter Grade on Assignment 3 (+1 observing)
Abstentions 0
One council member stated that she did not feel the spirit of the Code
had been broken, and so the penalty should reflect the unintentionality
of the mistake. Many others disagreed. She had failed to make sure that
the work, which she let someone else print for her off of a computer disk
containing a reference paper with the same name, was her own before
turning in the paper. It was agreed that this was a severe violation with
some degree of negligence. Since few of the council members were changing
their minds, another straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #4
0 on Paper 2
1/2 Credit on the Paper 4
Drop in Letter Grade of Paper 2 (+1 observing)
No Penalty with Letter of Reprimand 1
Abstentions 0
With 2 members opposed and 7 members concurring, the results of Straw
Polls #1 and #4 were made binding. The Honor Council thus finds Student A
In Violation of the Honor System, and recommends to the Dean of Students
that Student A receive 1/2 Credit on the Paper (originally worth 25%, the
accused will lose half of this percentage).
Time of trial and deliberation: 4 hours
Respectfully submitted,
Courtney Kelso
Trial Clerk