10 “Yours Truly, Mike”: Cheating on an Online Math Exam During COVID

Introduction

On May 11th, 2020, then-president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Santa J. Ono, announced via email that UBC would “primarily offer larger classes online with selected smaller classes conducted in-person” for the fall semester (University of British Columbia, 2020). During this unprecedented semester Jordan Smith was a first-year student enrolled in one of these large online classes–Math 100, which had approximately 1,500 students. Following the course’s second midterm, Smith and all of his peers received a strongly-worded email from Professor Mike Bennett. The message stated in part: “I am extremely disappointed to tell you […] there were over 100 cases of cheating” (R/UBC, 2020a). The email went on to indicate that an investigation was underway, and students found guilty would receive a zero for the course, and that Bennett would recommend their expulsion (R/UBC, 2020a). Smith, aware that he was one of many self-admitted cheaters, nervously awaited a follow up email.

Following professor Bennettt’s email, a variety of opinions emerged from both students and external observers across various social media platforms, including Reddit, Facebook and TikTok. One such voice was UBC’s student society, the Alma Mater Society (AMS). AMS-affiliated students expressed disapproval of the professor’s decision to send an accusatory email to the entire class (Green, 2020). Social media discussions reflected a range of views, with some arguing that the students deserved the consequences of their actions, while others felt the professor’s response was excessive given the introductory level of the course. Reddit users argued that expulsion was too harsh a penalty (R/UBC, 2020b).

UBC’s Academic Integrity Policy

At UBC, students are expected to “inform themselves of the applicable standards for academic integrity… [and] In no case should… submit an assignment if… [they are] not clear on the relevant standard of academic integrity” (University of British Columbia, Discipline for Academic Misconduct, section 1.2., n.d)

UBC defines cheating as “any conduct by which a student gains or attempts to gain an unfair academic advantage or benefit thereby compromising the integrity of the academic process, or helping or attempting to help another person commit an act of academic misconduct or gain, or attempt to gain, an unfair academic advantage” (University of British Columbia, Discipline for Academic Misconduct, section 3.2, n.d). If academic misconduct does occur within a UBC credit course, the instructor “will usually be the first to review the facts of the allegations” (and if they conclude that it has occurred), “the instructor must report the allegations in accordance with the procedures established by the Dean of the Faculty in which the course was offered” (University of British Columbia, n.d). A further escalation may happen if the dean reports the incident to the registrar and the President’s committee (University of British Columbia, n.d).

A High-Stakes Online Exam

For many UBC students, including Jordan Smith, Math 100 was and remains a compulsory prerequisite for all first-year prospective engineering and physics students. Smith states that the course is notorious for its difficulty and for its design to ‘weed out’ students not ready to commit to the workload. When the course was delivered online in the fall of 2020 due to COVID-19, students were given the unprecedented opportunity to take their exams outside of a conventional, proctored environment resulting in allegations of  “a large majority of students” cheating. Further, as an adaptation to COVID-19, the course was asynchronous. Lectures were held through optional live conference calls and were posted online following the scheduled class (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024).

Smith said that for him making the decision to cheat was a no brainer. Smith knew he was placed in highly competitive circumstances designed to assess students’ abilities, and believed cheating was his only option if he wanted to pass the course. Smith further explains that “within first year [engineering], your specialty isn’t clear. Your placements for said specialty is given to you by grades. You can get placed into a certain [specialty] and be forced to stick with that […] Cheating on this test could be the difference between your wanted speciality or getting something you don’t want” (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024).

Smith said that the online exam was open-book, limiting students to course materials (such as online lectures, professor notes, textbook, etc) and personal notes during the test (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024). The use of any sources outside class material such as the internet, and collusion were strictly prohibited. Students were mainly required to solve questions through specified, unconventional methods and were limited to an hour to complete their tests. Since it was open-book, Smith also states that he was “under the impression that tests were made to be harder”  (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024) than previous years. Smith states that the only method of monitoring students was, “exams had to be taken through conference calls, with their assigned instructor in attendance.” (J. Smith, personal communication, November 16, 2024).

Smith confesses that he made use of third-party websites and programs such as online calculators to aid him. At the end of the interview, when asked the question “would you have said you learned from cheating?” He answered by stating that “doing well in a course does not correspond to how well you know things; it matters on what you take away. Using this [third party application], it was used […] to do well in the course. Cheating doesn’t mean I’m incapable of doing [the work]” (J. Smith, personal communication, November 2, 2024).

Aftermath

Though Bennett noted that an investigation was underway, UBC never delivered a formal statement about the incident, leaving students wondering if any investigation was actually conducted. Multiple redditors made posts such as Did those 100 first-years who used Chegg to cheat on a Math 100 exam a few months ago ever get expelled? (R/UBC, 2020b) and Anyone know what happened? (R/UBC, 2020a), but only speculations were made. Jordan Smith had his own speculation: “it honestly sounds [like] they just swept the investigation under the rug with the lack of information that’s public” (J. Smith, personal communications, November 16, 2024).

Some speculated that the cheating was detected through Chegg, believing that it could share student data, such as usernames, emails, and IP addresses, with academic institutions, potentially identifying those involved. UBC, however, denied these allegations, and Chegg stated that the use of an alleged ‘Chegg trap’ in which a professor uploads fake solutions in order to entrap cheaters was “factually impossible” (Green, 2020), suggesting that there was no sting operation..

Bennettt faced scrutiny from students and the UBC AMS, who argued that the stress caused by his email caused harm to students’ mental health (Green, 2020). Despite his initial message, Bennett later expressed that “Students have a right to privacy and, in all cases, we work under the presumption of innocence, until we have irrefutable proof to the contrary,” (Green, 2020). But given the lack of information about the outcome of the case, it remains difficult to know what exactly was true, what was even investigated, and whether there were any consequences.

Note: “Jordan Smith” is a pseudonym for a real student in the Math 100 course.

Discussion Questions

1. How did the university’s shift to remote learning complicate prevention, detection, and response to academic misconduct in this case?
2. What factors do you think influenced students’ decisions to cheat (or not) in Math 100 and/or similar courses?
3. How do you think an instructor should communicate about cheating incidents in very large classes? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
4. Do you think this incident could have been mitigated by the use of different e-proctoring methods?
5. To what extent does the difference between in-person and online exams affect the (perceived) fairness of the assessment process?
6. If the same event happened today, do you think the outcome would have been different? Why?

References

Green, P. (2020, November 30). Prof Denies Misleading Students Amid Accusations of “Over 100 Cases of Cheating” in Math 100. The Ubyssey. https://www.ubyssey.ca/news/over-100-cases-of-cheating-math-100/

R/UBC on reddit: Anyone Know What Happened? (2020a). https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/jz9spm/anyone_know_what_happened/

R/UBC on reddit: Did Those 100 First-Years Who Used Chegg to Cheat on a Math 100 Exam Few Months Ago Ever Get Expelled? (2020b). https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/n2kkxb/did_those_100_firstyears_who_used_chegg_to_cheat/

University of British Columbia. (2020.). Covid-19 – UBC’s Approach for the Fall Term. UBC Broadcast. https://broadcastemail.ubc.ca/2020/05/11/covid-19-ubcs-approach-for-the-fall-term/

University of British Columbia. (n.d.). Discipline for Academic Misconduct. UBC Academic Calendar. https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/campus-wide-policies-and-regulations/student-conduct-and-discipline/discipline-academic-miscondu