After weeks of speculation and controversy, the administration is notifying a startlingly high number of students this week that they are being implicated in the Computer Science 4 cheating scandal. The College is in the process of notifying 78 students who are under investigation, and of these, 63 will definitely have hearings before the Committee on Standards.
Senior Associate Dean of the College Dan Nelson told The Dartmouth that students were informed that the administration was investigating their possible implication in the scandal via individual BlitzMail messages as well as through Hinman Mail yesterday and today.
"We don't have any reports of possible violations for any more than the 78 students that were identified, though we are still investigating," Nelson said. "Information may continue to come in from other students, so it is possible that others will be identified."
The number implicated in the scandal is significantly higher than previously estimated, representing nearly half the students in the class.
Students were assured in a BlitzMail message from professor Rex Dwyer two weeks ago that no students who had received help from teaching assistants would be turned over to the administration for further investigation. Had these students been included the number would have likely been significantly higher.
The alleged incident involves a number of students downloading solutions from the class website after Dwyer failed to reprotect the answers following an in-class presentation.
The investigation
Students are receiving different notifications this week from the administration telling them if they are to be among the cases heard by the COS, or if the College needs more information from them before making a decision.
Those 63 who will go before the committee are in the process of being notified and told what to expect in the coming days. They will also receive a copy of the complaint, forms and supporting documentation, including copies of the assignment, reports from TAs, and copies of the solution code that had allegedly been copied.
Fifteen others who are not notified that they will have COS hearings, will receive a very different message asking them to submit a report to Nelson by the end of the week documenting how they completed the assignment. The submissions will be evaluated to determine if there is evidence that cheating took place in these more questionable situations.
Nelson said he hopes to have the process finished by the end of the term and to have completed all COS hearings by that time, though he admitted to The Dartmouth that due to the large numbers of students involved this may be logistically difficult.
Undergraduate Judicial Affairs Officer Marcia Kelly said hearings will likely begin next Tuesday and will probably be held that day as well as Wednesday and Thursday.
Kelly said hearings will not be held after next Thursday as a result of finals period beginning, and said that those students not brought before the COS this term will be heard Spring term.
Nelson said it has not yet been determined if the hearings will be held for several groups or if individual hearings will be held for each case.
"We're still working out the details," Nelson said. "We will do what will be fair to individual students and is consistent with the normal process. There have been hearings in the past that have included one or two students, and there have also been some with many."
He added that the decision will be based on several considerations including logistical issues, fairness to the students involved and grouping cases that appear to be similar.
The potential outcomes
While Nelson declined to speculate on the possible punishments the COS may issue for students implicated in the scandal, Kelly told The Dartmouth in a previous interview that there was some precedent for punishing students who cheat using material from websites.
"The Committee has repeatedly voted to support the notion that average violations of the Honor Code -- unpermitted collaboration ... taking things off websites and downloading answers -- [are punishable] by one year of suspension," Kelly said.
While the nature of each of the 63 cases to go before the COS is varied and still not fully clear, previous interviews with students in the class indicate that the issue may not be as simple as just downloading the answers.
Both students and TA David Wagner said they believe the issue is very complex and that many of these complications will likely become known during the COS hearings.
There has also been speculation by anonymous students that Dwyer deliberately entrapped pupils in order to see who in the class would take advantage of the situation and cheat.
It is uncertain that evidence for this can and would be brought forth in COS hearings, and it is also unclear how this might affect the process and potential outcomes.
