{"id":92,"date":"2024-11-26T23:54:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T04:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/?post_type=chapter&p=92"},"modified":"2024-11-28T00:19:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T05:19:48","slug":"i-will-recommend-their-expulsion-cheating-on-an-online-math-exam-during-covid","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/chapter\/i-will-recommend-their-expulsion-cheating-on-an-online-math-exam-during-covid\/","title":{"raw":"\u201cYours Truly, Mike\u201d: Cheating on an Online Math Exam During COVID","rendered":"\u201cYours Truly, Mike\u201d: Cheating on an Online Math Exam During COVID"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nOn May 11th, 2020, then-president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Santa J. Ono, announced via email that UBC would \u201cprimarily offer larger classes online with selected smaller classes conducted in-person\u201d 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\u2013Math 100, which had approximately 1,500 students. Following the course\u2019s second midterm, Smith and all of his peers received a strongly-worded email from Professor Mike Bennett. The message stated in part: \u201cI am extremely disappointed to tell you [...] there were over 100 cases of cheating\u201d (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.\r\n\r\nFollowing professor Bennettt\u2019s 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\u2019s student society, the Alma Mater Society (AMS). AMS-affiliated students expressed disapproval of the professor\u2019s 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).\r\n

UBC\u2019s Academic Integrity Policy<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nAt UBC, students are expected to \u201cinform themselves of the applicable standards for academic integrity\u2026 [and] In no case should\u2026 submit an assignment if\u2026 [they are] not clear on the relevant standard of academic integrity\u201d (University of British Columbia, Discipline for Academic Misconduct, section 1.2., n.d)\r\n\r\nUBC defines cheating as \u201cany 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\u201d (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 \u201cwill usually be the first to review the facts of the allegations\u201d (and if they conclude that it has occurred), \u201cthe instructor must report the allegations in accordance with the procedures established by the Dean of the Faculty in which the course was offered\u201d (University of British Columbia, n.d). A further escalation may happen if the dean reports the incident to the registrar and the President\u2019s committee (University of British Columbia, n.d).\r\n

A High-Stakes Online Exam<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nFor 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 \u2018weed out\u2019 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\u00a0 \u201ca large majority of students\u201d 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).\r\n\r\nSmith 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\u2019 abilities, and believed cheating was his only option if he wanted to pass the course. Smith further explains that \u201cwithin first year [engineering], your specialty isn\u2019t 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 [\u2026] Cheating on this test could be the difference between your wanted speciality or getting something you don\u2019t want\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024).\r\n\r\nSmith 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 \u201cunder the impression that tests were made to be harder\u201d\u00a0 (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024) than previous years. Smith states that the only method of monitoring students was, \u201cexams had to be taken through conference calls, with their assigned instructor in attendance.\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, November 16, 2024).\r\n\r\nSmith 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 \u201cwould you have said you learned from cheating?\u201d He answered by stating that \u201cdoing 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\u2019t mean I\u2019m incapable of doing [the work]\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, November 2, 2024).\r\n

Aftermath<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nThough 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<\/em>? (R\/UBC, 2020b) and Anyone know what happened?<\/em> (R\/UBC, 2020a), but only speculations were made. Jordan Smith had his own speculation: \u201cit honestly sounds [like] they just swept the investigation under the rug with the lack of information that\u2019s public\u201d (J. Smith, personal communications, November 16, 2024).\r\n\r\nSome 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 \u2018Chegg trap\u2019 in which a professor uploads fake solutions in order to entrap cheaters was \u201cfactually impossible\u201d (Green, 2020), suggesting that there was no sting operation..\r\n\r\nBennettt 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 \u201cStudents have a right to privacy and, in all cases, we work under the presumption of innocence, until we have irrefutable proof to the contrary,\u201d (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.\r\n

Note: \"Jordan Smith\" is a pseudonym for a real student in the Math 100 course.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. How did the university\u2019s shift to remote learning complicate prevention, detection, and response to academic misconduct in this case?<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. What factors do you think influenced students' decisions to cheat (or not) in Math 100 and\/or similar courses?<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. How do you think an instructor should communicate about cheating incidents in very large classes? What, if anything, would you have done differently?<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Do you think this incident could have been mitigated by the use of different e-proctoring methods?<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. To what extent does the difference between in-person and online exams affect the (perceived) fairness of the assessment process?<\/li>\r\n \t
  6. If the same event happened today, do you think the outcome would have been different? Why?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    References<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n

    Green, P. (2020, November 30). Prof Denies Misleading Students Amid Accusations of \u201cOver 100 Cases of Cheating\u201d in Math 100. The Ubyssey. https:\/\/www.ubyssey.ca\/news\/over-100-cases-of-cheating-math-100\/<\/p>\r\n

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

    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\/<\/p>\r\n

    University of British Columbia. (2020.). Covid-19 - UBC\u2019s Approach for the Fall Term. UBC Broadcast. https:\/\/broadcastemail.ubc.ca\/2020\/05\/11\/covid-19-ubcs-approach-for-the-fall-term\/<\/p>\r\n

    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<\/p>","rendered":"

    Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    On May 11th, 2020, then-president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Santa J. Ono, announced via email that UBC would \u201cprimarily offer larger classes online with selected smaller classes conducted in-person\u201d 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\u2013Math 100, which had approximately 1,500 students. Following the course\u2019s second midterm, Smith and all of his peers received a strongly-worded email from Professor Mike Bennett. The message stated in part: \u201cI am extremely disappointed to tell you […] there were over 100 cases of cheating\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

    Following professor Bennettt\u2019s 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\u2019s student society, the Alma Mater Society (AMS). AMS-affiliated students expressed disapproval of the professor\u2019s 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).<\/p>\n

    UBC\u2019s Academic Integrity Policy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    At UBC, students are expected to \u201cinform themselves of the applicable standards for academic integrity\u2026 [and] In no case should\u2026 submit an assignment if\u2026 [they are] not clear on the relevant standard of academic integrity\u201d (University of British Columbia, Discipline for Academic Misconduct, section 1.2., n.d)<\/p>\n

    UBC defines cheating as \u201cany 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\u201d (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 \u201cwill usually be the first to review the facts of the allegations\u201d (and if they conclude that it has occurred), \u201cthe instructor must report the allegations in accordance with the procedures established by the Dean of the Faculty in which the course was offered\u201d (University of British Columbia, n.d). A further escalation may happen if the dean reports the incident to the registrar and the President\u2019s committee (University of British Columbia, n.d).<\/p>\n

    A High-Stakes Online Exam<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    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 \u2018weed out\u2019 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\u00a0 \u201ca large majority of students\u201d 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).<\/p>\n

    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\u2019 abilities, and believed cheating was his only option if he wanted to pass the course. Smith further explains that \u201cwithin first year [engineering], your specialty isn\u2019t 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 [\u2026] Cheating on this test could be the difference between your wanted speciality or getting something you don\u2019t want\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024).<\/p>\n

    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 \u201cunder the impression that tests were made to be harder\u201d\u00a0 (J. Smith, personal communication, October 5, 2024) than previous years. Smith states that the only method of monitoring students was, \u201cexams had to be taken through conference calls, with their assigned instructor in attendance.\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, November 16, 2024).<\/p>\n

    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 \u201cwould you have said you learned from cheating?\u201d He answered by stating that \u201cdoing 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\u2019t mean I\u2019m incapable of doing [the work]\u201d (J. Smith, personal communication, November 2, 2024).<\/p>\n

    Aftermath<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    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<\/em>? (R\/UBC, 2020b) and Anyone know what happened?<\/em> (R\/UBC, 2020a), but only speculations were made. Jordan Smith had his own speculation: \u201cit honestly sounds [like] they just swept the investigation under the rug with the lack of information that\u2019s public\u201d (J. Smith, personal communications, November 16, 2024).<\/p>\n

    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 \u2018Chegg trap\u2019 in which a professor uploads fake solutions in order to entrap cheaters was \u201cfactually impossible\u201d (Green, 2020), suggesting that there was no sting operation..<\/p>\n

    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 \u201cStudents have a right to privacy and, in all cases, we work under the presumption of innocence, until we have irrefutable proof to the contrary,\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

    Note: “Jordan Smith” is a pseudonym for a real student in the Math 100 course.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. How did the university\u2019s shift to remote learning complicate prevention, detection, and response to academic misconduct in this case?<\/li>\n
    2. What factors do you think influenced students’ decisions to cheat (or not) in Math 100 and\/or similar courses?<\/li>\n
    3. How do you think an instructor should communicate about cheating incidents in very large classes? What, if anything, would you have done differently?<\/li>\n
    4. Do you think this incident could have been mitigated by the use of different e-proctoring methods?<\/li>\n
    5. To what extent does the difference between in-person and online exams affect the (perceived) fairness of the assessment process?<\/li>\n
    6. If the same event happened today, do you think the outcome would have been different? Why?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      References<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Green, P. (2020, November 30). Prof Denies Misleading Students Amid Accusations of \u201cOver 100 Cases of Cheating\u201d in Math 100. The Ubyssey. https:\/\/www.ubyssey.ca\/news\/over-100-cases-of-cheating-math-100\/<\/p>\n

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

      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\/<\/p>\n

      University of British Columbia. (2020.). Covid-19 – UBC\u2019s Approach for the Fall Term. UBC Broadcast. https:\/\/broadcastemail.ubc.ca\/2020\/05\/11\/covid-19-ubcs-approach-for-the-fall-term\/<\/p>\n

      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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2265,"menu_order":10,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"COVID Math Exam","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["kevin-c-apdal","jazmine-kennedy","amir-khan","shane-wong-too-yuen"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[83,92,81,99],"license":[],"class_list":["post-92","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-amir-khan","contributor-jazmine-kennedy","contributor-kevin-c-apdal","contributor-shane-wong-too-yuen"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/92\/revisions\/120"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/92\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/aicasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}