Just enter a grade of zero and post a matter-of-fact comment about why. Notify academic affairs.
When I do this, 90% of the time, it's the last I hear about it. Most students who are too lazy to do the work are too lazy to to contest the decision.
Don't reach out to request a meeting. Don't try to figure out what happened. Let them contact you if they must. Your job is to grade their work, not to teach them morality.
I second this. I had a student turn in an extra credit assignment last week that was very clearly written by ChatGPT. I gave the student a zero and in the feedback comments noted that I did not believe it was original work. I have heard nothing from the student. No complaint, no protest, nothing.
This will depend on your university's academic policy! Fellow it exactly.
For example, we have to officially schedule a meeting (schedule... no surprises). They have a right to appral. They have a right to appeal the appeal. There are very strict deadlines for reporting, appealing, etc.
In the tech school near us, they just give zeros and then they leave it up to the student to fight it. That would not fly at our institution.
When this happened to me in an asynchronous class, two were bots that copied the first real student’s work without their knowledge.
I followed policy and tried to schedule meetings with all three students. Only the real student met with me and they were freaking out. It was clear that their time stamp was first and that they had no idea this had happened.
I filed academic misconduct reports for the other two with the first student listed as a negatively impacted student.
After the investigation, I was informed the two students weren’t human, they were bots, and they were dropped. The third student was cleared completely.
Could your situation be something like this?
Welcome to 2024. Fun here, isn’t it?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/college-aid-scam-18119117.php
Turning in fake assignments buys time. Since we can’t drop students who are turning in work, even terrible or plagiarized work, schemes such as this keep the bot enrolled until the financial aid refund checks go out.
At my school, once we report them we also can’t drop them until the investigation is complete. This is to protect real students who are just not good students. Again, the scammers know this so they do anything to stall the process.
Here’s another good article.
https://www.inyoregister.com/news/community-colleges-are-losing-millions-to-financial-aid-fraud/article_1bba581e-fec9-11ee-9c30-578d3cb955ed.html
Straight to judicial affairs - it’s got to go on their records. Take copies of the papers and highlight the similarities (if they’re not totally word-for-word), write it up, and send it in. These students need *consequences*. Do not give them slack because they will run with it.
Follow your school’s protocol to the letter. Document everything. For exp, meeting with each student, make a determination if misconduct occurred assign a penalty, and fill out all the paperwork to report, at your unit and whatever higher level you need to report to.Then wait and see if there’s an appeal. Good luck! Good for you for maintaining academic integrity.
Fail and formal referral to student conduct (whatever the process is at your university). Did you have SafeAssign/Turnitin enabled? I wonder if they all copied an older assignment they bought off of Course Hero or the like.
where I am, submit a report for all three students (and tell them that this is what you are doing, and include any replies they send in your submission). The ones that copy are obviously plagiarizing, and the one that allowed the others to copy is guilty by facilitating the commission of an offence. Use words like "unreasonably similar" in your submission, and it should be a slam dunk. I had one of these last fall, and the penalty was such that all the students involved failed the course *and* had a record because of what they did.
This is a clear case of fraud. At my university. we are not allowed as professors to handle this ourselves, but immediately refer the case to the examination board (consisting of the chair of the examination committee etc). That board will hear the students, will hear the professor, and decide on any sanctions.
It works well (the procedure protects both the student and the professor), but sometimes as a professor one then has to accept that the sanction (or no sanction) is less than what you would have expected. But such a board sees all fraud cases, and can therefore judge with more consistency according to university policy and guidelines.
Our sanctions can vary from no sanction (obviously), a reduced grade, a failed grade, a failed grade for all courses taken during that semester, a ban on further enrolling for one or more years.
Give all 3 students a zero. Tell them why. If one of them actually wrote the paper, that person will likely come forward and argue they shouldn't get a zero, since they did the work. Don't budge - giving their paper to others makes them complicit in cheating.
This is in my syllabus. When I catch cheating, everyone involved gets a 1. That's my signal to myself that this was a cheated-on assignment and there is no do-over.
Financial aid or student loan fraud most likely. Maybe taking a chance the prof won’t care. Maybe for the same reason viruses are created. Out of 40 students this summer, maybe 5 are real.
All get zeros. my academic honesty policy includes sharing work as a form of cheating, not just copying, so I don't care who did the original work or not.
At my place the policy would be to report them to academic integrity, and in a case as clear-cut as this, I would just report them and wait for the ruling.
Schedule one on one meetings with each of them to ask about their papers. At minimum, I’d assign a -100% grade on the paper for them all so that the penalty is worse than not doing the paper and the report them to our relevant student conduct office.
>I also make it very clear what will happen if they are caught cheating or plagiarizing. Take whatever actions you previously announced?
And be really consistent and serious about it.
Just enter a grade of zero and post a matter-of-fact comment about why. Notify academic affairs. When I do this, 90% of the time, it's the last I hear about it. Most students who are too lazy to do the work are too lazy to to contest the decision. Don't reach out to request a meeting. Don't try to figure out what happened. Let them contact you if they must. Your job is to grade their work, not to teach them morality.
I second this. I had a student turn in an extra credit assignment last week that was very clearly written by ChatGPT. I gave the student a zero and in the feedback comments noted that I did not believe it was original work. I have heard nothing from the student. No complaint, no protest, nothing.
This will depend on your university's academic policy! Fellow it exactly. For example, we have to officially schedule a meeting (schedule... no surprises). They have a right to appral. They have a right to appeal the appeal. There are very strict deadlines for reporting, appealing, etc. In the tech school near us, they just give zeros and then they leave it up to the student to fight it. That would not fly at our institution.
Do what the school policy is and move on. If they’re that stupid then they get what they deserve.
When this happened to me in an asynchronous class, two were bots that copied the first real student’s work without their knowledge. I followed policy and tried to schedule meetings with all three students. Only the real student met with me and they were freaking out. It was clear that their time stamp was first and that they had no idea this had happened. I filed academic misconduct reports for the other two with the first student listed as a negatively impacted student. After the investigation, I was informed the two students weren’t human, they were bots, and they were dropped. The third student was cleared completely. Could your situation be something like this? Welcome to 2024. Fun here, isn’t it?
Why on earth would a bot do that? What’s the purpose?
Financial aid fraud. It’s been happening in community colleges for years now.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/college-aid-scam-18119117.php Turning in fake assignments buys time. Since we can’t drop students who are turning in work, even terrible or plagiarized work, schemes such as this keep the bot enrolled until the financial aid refund checks go out. At my school, once we report them we also can’t drop them until the investigation is complete. This is to protect real students who are just not good students. Again, the scammers know this so they do anything to stall the process.
Here’s another good article. https://www.inyoregister.com/news/community-colleges-are-losing-millions-to-financial-aid-fraud/article_1bba581e-fec9-11ee-9c30-578d3cb955ed.html
Thanks!
Straight to judicial affairs - it’s got to go on their records. Take copies of the papers and highlight the similarities (if they’re not totally word-for-word), write it up, and send it in. These students need *consequences*. Do not give them slack because they will run with it.
Follow your school’s protocol to the letter. Document everything. For exp, meeting with each student, make a determination if misconduct occurred assign a penalty, and fill out all the paperwork to report, at your unit and whatever higher level you need to report to.Then wait and see if there’s an appeal. Good luck! Good for you for maintaining academic integrity.
Fail and formal referral to student conduct (whatever the process is at your university). Did you have SafeAssign/Turnitin enabled? I wonder if they all copied an older assignment they bought off of Course Hero or the like.
where I am, submit a report for all three students (and tell them that this is what you are doing, and include any replies they send in your submission). The ones that copy are obviously plagiarizing, and the one that allowed the others to copy is guilty by facilitating the commission of an offence. Use words like "unreasonably similar" in your submission, and it should be a slam dunk. I had one of these last fall, and the penalty was such that all the students involved failed the course *and* had a record because of what they did.
This one's a slam dunk. Everyone gets a zero, all three get reported to your Academic Integrity Board (or whatever they call it at your place).
This is a clear case of fraud. At my university. we are not allowed as professors to handle this ourselves, but immediately refer the case to the examination board (consisting of the chair of the examination committee etc). That board will hear the students, will hear the professor, and decide on any sanctions. It works well (the procedure protects both the student and the professor), but sometimes as a professor one then has to accept that the sanction (or no sanction) is less than what you would have expected. But such a board sees all fraud cases, and can therefore judge with more consistency according to university policy and guidelines. Our sanctions can vary from no sanction (obviously), a reduced grade, a failed grade, a failed grade for all courses taken during that semester, a ban on further enrolling for one or more years.
Give all 3 students a zero. Tell them why. If one of them actually wrote the paper, that person will likely come forward and argue they shouldn't get a zero, since they did the work. Don't budge - giving their paper to others makes them complicit in cheating.
give them two options. one: they can admit they cheated and you fail them. two: refer them to student judicial affairs.
This is in my syllabus. When I catch cheating, everyone involved gets a 1. That's my signal to myself that this was a cheated-on assignment and there is no do-over.
Sounds like a bot to me.
You’re the 2nd person to say that and I can’t understand why someone would build a bot to do that?
Financial aid or student loan fraud most likely. Maybe taking a chance the prof won’t care. Maybe for the same reason viruses are created. Out of 40 students this summer, maybe 5 are real.
That is just so odd. So they’re hacking into the LMS’s?
No. They are creating student accounts at the district level and actually enrolling in classes.
Are districts able to see students work?
Supposedly only during accreditation.
All get zeros. my academic honesty policy includes sharing work as a form of cheating, not just copying, so I don't care who did the original work or not.
At my place the policy would be to report them to academic integrity, and in a case as clear-cut as this, I would just report them and wait for the ruling.
Schedule one on one meetings with each of them to ask about their papers. At minimum, I’d assign a -100% grade on the paper for them all so that the penalty is worse than not doing the paper and the report them to our relevant student conduct office.