A professor recently referred two students to Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) for what appeared to be unauthorized collaboration during a computer science exam. Another student taking the exam had observed the two students whispering to each other and brought it to the professor’s attention. When the professor compared the two exams after the fact, he also found lengthy identical wrong answers. When the students met individually with an SJA officer, they both stated that one of them had copied from the other during the exam. When asked about the report that they had been talking during the test, both stated that the whispering occurred when the copier asked for help from the other student who responded with “no” and told her to be quiet. What appeared to be unauthorized collaboration was in reality one student copying off of another student without her permission. The student who copied from her friend was placed on Disciplinary Probation and required to complete 10 hours of community service.
A group of graduate students were referred by their professor for suspected unauthorized collaboration on a take-home final after the professor noticed many similarities in their answers while grading the exams. During the students’ individual meetings with a Judicial Officer, they all admitted that they had met up at a group member’s apartment before the exam. They stated that they had intended to complete their take-home exams individually and had only gotten together for the purpose of going out afterwards to celebrate the end of the quarter. However, the exam proved very difficult and the students eventually gave in to temptation and began working together on the exam. The professor had explicitly told the class that the exam was strictly to be taken individually, and had reminded them about integrity and the Code of Academic Conduct. Some of the students involved in the unauthorized collaboration were on provisional acceptance, and they were dismissed from the graduate program. The others were placed on Deferred Separation status.
Two students were referred to SJA for suspected unauthorized collaboration during two exams in a lower-division science class. The professor observed what appeared to be the two students looking at each other’s test papers and working on answers together. Upon inspection of the tests, the professor discovered a substantial number of shared wrong answers and shared odd misspellings on both tests. During meetings with a Judicial Officer, the students stated that they are good friends and admitted to collaborating during both exams. The students agreed to be placed on Disciplinary Probation, to complete 30 hours of community service each and not to sit next to each other or with other friends or study partners for all future exams at UC Davis.
