After the Committee on Standards heard only 27 of the 63 cases of alleged Computer Science 4 cheating, the College announced today that it is withdrawing all charges brought against students by former visiting professor Rex Dwyer.
According to Dean of the College James Larimore, who served as non-voting chair of the COS, it became clear after more than 34 hours of hearings and deliberation that the body would be unable to distinguish with certainty between those who cheated and those who received the solutions to the homework from legitimate sources.
"The Committee concluded that some cheating did occur," Larimore wrote in a letter to the Dartmouth community. "But ... the nature and the quality of the evidence, combined with the circumstances under which the course was conducted, made it impossible to distinguish between those responsible and those not responsible for violations of the Academic Honor Principle."
The letter will be distributed to students via Hinman Mail in the coming days.
Larimore told The Dartmouth in an interview tonight that the COS's discussion to drop the charges was based on two factors: academic integrity and fairness.
He also said that by the end of the session it became clear that fairness had to prevail and that they would not be able to distinguish who cheated.
According to Larimore, once the COS had approved the recommendation to terminate the proceedings against students the decision went to his office for approval from the College. He discussed it this morning with President of the College James Wright and Dean of the Faculty Edward Berger and the three decided it would be appropriate to end the hearings.
Larimore cited the issue of teaching assistants and graders giving out the answers as a large part of what made it so difficult to determine who was culpable, adding that there was evidence to suggest that some of the class tutors gave out the solutions on paper.
He also said that Dwyer's most explicit piece of evidence, server logs from the website that disclosed who may have viewed the source code, were not useful because they only tracked which computers had been used to view the site, not which individuals had actually viewed it.
Larimore told The Dartmouth that there was also the concern that some who had viewed the site and were listed on server logs had been clever enough to change parts of the downloaded solution and might thus avoid punishment although they had cheated.
Confusion over the issue
Berger said there was confusion from the beginning of the issue, adding that both the fact that it was a very complex situation and the fact that it may have been mishandled by Dwyer played into this confusion.
"There are many scenarios that may have happened," Berger said, describing how each of the two factors may have contributed to the problem.
Berger also defended the College's policy on visiting professors, saying that this would probably not impact the number of visitors Dartmouth hosts each year.
He said the College needs the visitors to teach in specialized fields that may not be represented by members of the regular faculty, and also said that they were sometimes needed to fill in for professors on leave or sabbatical.
Berger cited Dwyer as an anomaly in this case, saying that the professor had 10 years of experience and came highly recommended by the chair of the computer science department at North Carolina State, where Dwyer is a regular faculty member, but he added that it is sometimes difficult to pick up on the potential for situations like that of CS 4.
According to Berger, Dwyer will not be investigated for any sort of improper handling of the situation.
"I don't think they'll extend his contract," Berger said. "As far as I know it will not extend further than that."
The letter also cites the fact that a review of how visiting professors are informed about the honor code at Dartmouth is necessary.
"We need to figure out what we're not doing and what we should be doing and make up the difference," Berger said. He added that, while there are orientation sessions for regular faculty, there are no such sessions for visitors who simply receive a great deal of printed information.
