Students may choose procrastination, excessive coffee drinking or mindless junk food consumption as their preferred way to deal with midterm stress, but one student caught collaborating on a computer science project last semester offers this advice: "Don't cheat. The consequences suck."
The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has been separated from the University for a semester thanks to his decision to work on a programming project for an introductory computer science course with some friends in spite of instructions not to do so.
Two of the other students caught cheating with him were also asked to leave the University for a semester, he said. Their submitted work was "put through some machine" that found the projects' conspicuous similarities, he said.
Soon afterward, the student received an e-mail notifying him that he would have to attend a Dean's Hearing, was required to speak to a dean about the impending hearing and then attended the hearing itself.
"(The process) was just a couple of weeks, but it felt really long," the student said, adding that the Dean's Hearing was "the most nerve-racking experience of my life."
Consequences for violating the academic code range from receiving a grade of No Credit on the assignment in question to permanent separation from the University, according to the "Principles of the Brown University Community: Academic Code and Non-Academic Conduct."
Most often, a student caught violating the academic code receives an NC on the assignment or in the course, which could be accompanied by a transcript notation, according to Catherine Dubé, associate professor of community health and family medicine and co-chair of the Committee on the Academic Code, which determines the fate of students required to have a Dean's Hearing.
Dubé said she has seen three or four suspensions in each of the five years she has served on the committee. Suspensions can be as short as a semester and as long as two years, she said. Students can be expelled if the offense is serious enough, but that rarely happens, Dubé said. Gregory Elliott, associate professor of sociology and the committee's other co-chair, said he has never seen a student expelled in the three years he has served on the committee.
When a teaching assistant or other student sees a student engaging in behavior that suggests a violation of the code - such as looking at another student's test in class or whispering to another student - they can alert the professor, who then decides whether the alleged cheater will be subject to a Dean's Hearing, Dubé said.
Sometimes professors decide to give the student another chance without submitting the alleged violation to the committee. If professors seek more serious consequences for the student's actions, they talk to Karen Krahulik, associate dean of the College and case administrator of the academic code. Krahulik then tells students in-person that they must attend a Dean's Hearing.
During the hearing, the co-chair present will read the professor's charge letter, Dubé said. Then students are given the chance to speak for themselves. Most students have some sort of explanation for their behavior, according to Dubé. Some, for example, may say they did not understand they were violating the code, while others say their misconduct was the result of "emotional problems," she said.
The student who collaborated on his computer science project last semester said the opportunity to speak for himself "didn't make much difference."
"We didn't have a defense," he said. "It was blatantly cheating."
Most cases that come before the committee are clear violations of the academic code, according to Dubé and Elliott. The question is not whether the student violated the code, Dubé said, but how severe the punishment should be for the violation.
"We agree on one thing, but then we debate other smaller things," Dubé said.
Though members of the committee are often convinced of the student's guilt by the end of the hearing, they are also convinced that the student will benefit from the ordeal, Elliott and Dubé said. The hearings are "meant to be more educational than punitive," Elliott said.
Though the disciplinary procedures may not deter students from violating the code in the first place, they give the University a means to "protect the institution and protect students who are doing honest work," Dubé said.
But, according to the censured computer science student, there isn't a clear delineation between students who are and aren't doing honest work. His said his actions didn't seem that unusual when he decided to work with his friends on the project.
"It seemed like everyone else was doing it," he said. "We didn't know anybody else who didn't collaborate."
He added that other students were "smart enough" to turn in work that did not display obvious collaboration. "Good for them," he added.
But for some students, the risk of cheating outweighs any possible appeal.
"I can imagine in every class someone could cheat if they wanted to, but there's too much at stake," said Darshan Patel '09. "I think people learned that in high school."
But Professor of Economics Roberto Serrano experienced otherwise last semester. One student in his course, "EC 11: Principles of Economics," witnessed other students in the class cheating on the semester's first midterm in February and reported it.
The incident - Serrano's first encounter with cheating in his 14 years at Brown - was "extremely unpleasant," Serrano said, adding that there is "nothing I hate more than (violations of the academic code)."
Serrano took the case to the academic code committee, which in May found the students guilty of violating the academic code. Serrano would not disclose the number of students involved or the punishment they received.
Another student, who wished to be quoted anonymously, said she doesn't understand why students would cheat on tests but said she understands why students might copy each other's homework under time constraints.
Students collaborate on homework "out of desperation" when "they run out of time and can't afford to lose the points," she said.
In departments that provide mediocre academic support to students, she said, Brunonians may be more likely to turn to each other for help on assignments.
Though professors in most departments may not be able to catch this sort of collaboration, the Department of Computer Science uses a program that allows its faculty to do exactly that.
Thomas Doeppner, associate professor of computer science, said the program, called Major of Software Similarity, is "used only for detecting copying of computer program" in graded programming projects. The program scores submitted assignments according to the amount of similar material they contain.
If a match between separate students' assignments yields a high score, then "somebody was not doing the work properly," Doeppner said.
The department catches "a handful" of violations each year, particularly in introductory courses, he said. Krahulik and Elliott said they receive more complaints from computer science professors than from any other department's faculty, most likely because of the program.
The student caught collaborating on his computer science project owes his semester away from Brown to the program. He said punishment has "obviously" changed his outlook on academic violations, since another violation may result in his expulsion.
"I'm just never going to do it again," he said.
