The Honor Council found a freshman in a science course responsible for plagiarizing an assignment. The student asked to use a friend’s assignment to serve as a model for his own, but he used almost all of his friend’s work and submitted it as his own. The assignment is worth 10 percent of the course grade. The student suggested that he and his classmate didn’t realize this was a form of plagiarism and that his classmate had also engaged in academic misconduct. The student requested an expedited hearing, in which the Honor Council recommended the standard sanction of an F in the course, a two-year mark on the student’s record and an educational program about the Honor Code.
The Honor Council found a junior in a science course responsible for plagiarism. The student submitted work that, according to the professor, looked suspiciously similar to another student’s work. The Honor Council determined that the similarities were too detailed to be coincidental. The student said he did not know the other student, leading the Honor Council to believe they may have independently assessed the same online resources. The Honor Council recommended the standard sanction of an F in the course and a two-year mark on his record. In an appeal, the student accepted responsibility for the violation but asked the Honor Council to modify the sanction to a passing grade so he would not fall behind in completing his major. The sanction was reduced to a zero on both assignments and a two-year mark on the record.
The Honor Council found a junior responsible for academic misconduct after allowing another student to look at a completed assignment to help generate ideas. The professor found that their assignments were nearly 50 percent identical. The Honor Council determined that the content must have been copied and pasted since the two papers contained identical phrases and grammatical issues. During a full hearing, the student said they understood sharing content gives other students an unfair disadvantage, but the student reported being unaware that the classmate was copying the assignment verbatim. After a successful appeal, the student received a sanction of a zero on the assignment and a one-year mark on the record.
