Aug 30 - 125 Harvard students suspected of cheating on take-home exam

Harvard University is investigating whether about 125 undergraduates "inappropriately collaborated" or copied answers on a spring semester take-home final exam, the school announced today.

It's being called the largest cheating scandal in recent memory to hit the elite university and the Ivy League.

The students -- about half the class -- violated a no-collaboration policy printed on the exam, which consisted of short questions and an essay, said Jay Harris, dean of undergraduate education, the Boston Globe reports. The students allegedly collaborated through e-mail or "other means," and some may have copied their answers.

The cheating was uncovered after faculty noticed similarities among a number of exams and referred them for administrative review. All will face hearings, and those found to have plagiarized may have to withdraw for a year.

The administrative board's actions are confidential, Harris said, and the identities of the students or the course will not be revealed.

"These allegations, if proven, represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends," Harvard University President Drew Faust said in the announcement. "We must deal with this fairly and through a deliberative process. At the same time, the scope of the allegations suggests that there is work to be done to ensure that every student at Harvard understands and embraces the values that are fundamental to its community of scholars."

The announcement states:

While the allegations are limited to one class, FAS administrators and faculty members are taking a number of steps to underscore the importance of academic integrity for students even as the Administrative Board's review continues. First among those steps: The College Committee on Academic Integrity, chaired by Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay Harris, is expected to present a set of recommendations to reinforce the faculty's expectations of academic honesty. The committee, composed of faculty, undergraduate students, resident deans, and administrators, has been consulting with faculty and students in the College and[..]essing the practices of peer institutions on a range of actions, from the adoption of new ethics policies to the possible introduction of an honor code.

Additionally, a member of the Administrative Board staff has been tasked with building awareness among faculty and students about Harvard's academic integrity policies. The College also will engage with outside experts on academic integrity as they initiate a campuswide discussion about this issue. College officials will work with Housemasters and resident deans to convene a series of House-level conversations about academic integrity issues, taking advantage of Harvard's unique residential life system to promote House-level dialogue on a community-wide scale.

The Globe addresses the possibility of earlier cheating and remedies:

The number of students under investigation suggests that similar cheating may have occurred in other courses or previous iterations of the course in question. But Harvard officials do not plan to investigate that possibility unless other faculty members to come forward with suspicions of their own, and "we don't anticipate that," Harris said.

Instead, administrators will consider preventive measures, including the possibility of instituting an academic honor code -- an idea that has recently piqued interest at Harvard despite the college's history of resisting such a move.

Here's some of what the school lays out regarding plagiarism and collaboration under the heading "Academic Dishonesty" in the student handbook:

It is expected that all homework[..]ignments, projects, lab reports, papers, theses, and examinations and any other work submitted for academic credit will be the student's own. Students should always take great care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from information derived from sources. The term "sources" includes not only primary and secondary material published in print or online, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people. Quotations must be placed properly within quotation marks and must be cited fully. In addition, all paraphrased material must be acknowledged completely. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student's reading and research or from a student's own writings, the sources must be indicated.

Students must also comply with the policy on collaboration est@blished for each course, as set forth in the course syllabus or on the course website. Policies vary among the many fields and disciplines in the College, and may even vary for particular[..]ignments within a course. Unless otherwise stated on the syllabus or website, when collaboration is permitted within a course students must acknowledge any collaboration and its extent in all submitted work; however, students need not acknowledge discussion with others of general approaches to the[..]ignment or[..]istance with proofreading. If the syllabus or website does not include a policy on collaboration, students may[..]ume that collaboration in the completion of[..]ignments is permitted. Collaboration in the completion of examinations is always prohibited. ...

In 2010, Harvard senior Adam Wheeler was found to have used forged recommendations to get into the school, then used plagiarized essays to apply for scholarships, Bloomberg notes.


125 Harvard students suspected of cheating on take-home exam

America 2012: cant outsmart the teacher, ur[..] gonna get sent backwards.

They must not be that smart if they got caught cheating

How you get cheating on a take home test though?.......No I did nt read the article either

Give them a break. Its a damn take home exam. If the professor really wanted them to do it on their own he should have made it an in class test/assignment/pop quiz.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.[pic]

that goes to show, everybody cheats!!!

what i hate about this is its a "TAKE HOME EXAM".. of course people will work together, but the article says they noticed similarities..here is the thing, if you taught your students correctly....and they understood the information, shouldn't they all be correct and similar?? as long as its not word for word i mean WTF?

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How could you possibly get caught cheating on a take home exam? I mean its a take home exam, you get to use your notes and books....I used to love those take home exams..always got an A on mine....

#smarterpeolegivelessofa!!

Take home exam!? What is this, high school? Since when do colleges do that? Especially a college like Harvard? This is supposed to be some elite est@blishment of higher learning? This is how professors at Harvard give out their exams?

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Shid this is just the one time they got caught imgine how many times they didn't get caught!

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Never heard of a take home test in college. How is it a test when you can do it at home?? Project maybe. Give me the final of any test to take home and i'll ace it or close to it.

always got takehome tests all the time

dat prestige[pic]