The computer science department will begin an investigation this week of allegations of widespread cheating that may have occurred late last week in its introductory Computer Science 4 class.
As many as 40 students allegedly accessed areas of the CS4 website on Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 that revealed solutions to a homework assignment due the following week.
The portion of the website containing the solutions was previously protected from outside users, but following a presentation of the solutions in class, the site was not reprotected.
"We are looking into it," said Chair of the Computer Science Department Richard Drysdale. "Until we know more there's not a whole lot I can say, though the preliminary evidence indicates cheating took place."
Students found out last week that the North Carolina State visiting professor Rex Dwyer, who teaches the class, suspected that several students cheated on the assignment after he brought up the incident in class.
Students in the class have been assigned an essay in which they must explain the alleged incident to Dwyer's colleagues at NC State which is unrelated to possible punishment by the College.
The assignment sheet details students' cheating at "a small, elite college in the east" and gives a list of terminals that accessed the solutions. The addresses are all from the domain "dartmouth.edu," though the more specific portions of the addresses have been deliberately concealed.
Dwyer also wrote that he received an anonymous phone call, alerting him that the members of a certain fraternity downloaded the solution after he failed to reprotect the file, though he did not write which house it was.
Brent Morrison '02 said Dwyer assigned the essay at the end of a "normal class," adding that students were at first surprised by the homework assignment but that the room was quickly overcome by a "stunned silence."
"He said he was shocked and disappointed," Morrison said. "He also told us that he was going to go through all the code."
According to students in the class, Dwyer plans to compare the individual lines of computer code with those of his solution to determine who may have copied directly from the website.
A problem arises, however, because students who sought help from the class' teaching assistants may also have similar solutions to those that were on the website because the TAs were using Dwyer's code when students came to them for help.
Morrison said Teaching Assistant David Wagner blitzed the class asking who had received help from one of the assistants.
Other students who wished to remain anonymous told The Dartmouth that they believe it will be extremely difficult to discern who copied from the website and who legitimately sought help from a TA.
Students believe that some may have accessed the site with the intent of looking at the professor's code and others may have received copies of the code from other students via BlitzMail in addition to the many who received help from TAs.
"The question remains," one student said. "How do you differentiate the cheaters from the honest students?"
Dwyer was away from Hanover and could not be reached for comment last night.
