Last winter, accusations that more than 70 students had cheated in an introductory computer science course rocked the Dartmouth campus.
Now, almost exactly a year after the story broke on the "cheating scandal" in Computer Science 4 -- taught by Rex Dwyer, a visiting professor from North Carolina State University -- the incident serves as a lesson in integrity for many.
But for others, last year's CS4 events continue to fester.
Blame to go around
Even in hindsight, it is difficult to determine what led to the accusation that more than 78 students had violated the Honor Principle. Many, especially administrators, distribute the blame among the various parties involved, including the students, the professor, the computer science department and the administration itself.
"There were things I wish we had done differently, there were things I wish the professor had done differently, there were things I wish that the students had done differently," said computer science professor Scot Drysdale, who was serving as department chair when the CS4 scandal happened.
"I wish I understood how it happened completely," he added.
Miscommunication on what kinds of help with the assignment were acceptable combined with a terrible relationship between Dwyer and his students to set the stage for the ultimate incident.
"It seemed there were a lot of issues there, not just the code and how it's adapted, but there were some things about insider versus outsider going on," said Jeanne Wilson, last year's president of the Center for Academic Integrity, to whom Dwyer wrote a letter harshly criticizing the College's handling of the incident.
Last winter, CS4 students focused their criticism on Dwyer, attacking his knowledge of the course subject and teaching ability. Some even suggested that Dwyer set them up in revenge for disrespect shown to him in class.
Dwyer denied that accusation last week, saying he believes that students in the class were expecting an "easy A" and felt entitled to cheat when the course was more difficult than expected.
"I think the Ivies pretend they're special, but in that regard they are not," Dwyer said. "I think cheating goes on at Dartmouth all the time."
However, the current chair of the computer science department, David Nicol, said he believes the majority of the fault lay with Dwyer, saying, "He was ineffectual in the classroom. It was clearly evident that he laid a trap."
Fallout for a professor
Statements faulting his handling of the class or the cheating scandal still seem to get under Dwyer's skin. More than a year after he initially informed students that he had discovered possible instances of cheating, Dwyer himself still feels cheated.
"To the extent that it's possible, I've tried to put Dartmouth behind me and move on to other things, but it still rankles," Dwyer said.
"I guess it's catalyzed a career transition for me," he said. "I've discovered that I can make more money outside academia, and frankly, I don't feel like I want to mess with students anymore."
Dwyer said he was so disillusioned after his experiences at Dartmouth -- where, ironically, he had chosen to visit to gain a "respite" -- that he has taken a partial leave of absence from his teaching post at NCSU.
He is currently consulting for a biotechnology company and working on a textbook dealing with "bioinformatics," which involves computer algorithms that can analyze DNA.
Wilson said she understands where Dwyer is coming from.
"If there's a hearing, and they've put a lot of effort into bringing forward the case and then feel that there's no justice, that's a very sad situation," she said.
Dwyer continues to feel strongly that the cheating cases were mishandled by College administrators. Speaking to The Dartmouth last week, Dwyer repeated his claim that evidence was ignored during the investigation by the Committee on Standards.
"The Dartmouth administration ignored the evidence that was presented to them," Dwyer said. "The administration chose to hide information from itself. There were email logs that could have been used to show who accessed what when. The administration used privacy as an excuse to not follow up on that."
Dwyer said College administrators made him into a "scapegoat" rather than deal with the incident.
"I was made to take a fall when there were problems," he said, noting comments made by administrators to the media. "To see yourself defamed in the Boston Globe is no Sunday school picnic."
Nelson disagreed with Dywer's contention but seemed to understand the conditions under which his sentiments arose.
"I don't think he was made a scapegoat," Nelson said. "But he was indeed in a difficult circumstance."
Lessons and Validation for a College
After last year's CS4 fiasco, the College is taking certain steps to help ensure such "difficult circumstances" don't recur for either faculty or students.
"We don't always catch and punish everything that goes wrong, but we can always use it as an educational experience," Wilson said.
Some steps have been taken to better orient both students and faculty members to the Honor Principle, including making introductions to it a bigger part of freshman orientation and providing visiting faculty members with more support, at least in the CS department.
Visiting CS professors are now assigned mentors; members of the regular department faculty sit in on their classes on a regular basis to ensure that all is well. They're also more carefully screened for teaching ability, Nicol said.
In general, faculty have been encouraged to carefully explain what is acceptable in terms of help and collaboration on assignments. The vulnerabilities introduced by the use of technology should also be noted, administrators said.
"Regardless of whatever root cause it was, we have been highly sensitized to the potential for such things," Nicol said.
Overall, though, what changes have been made are relatively superficial. No alterations have been made, or even considered, to the relevant parts of the Honor Code.
"I think there's nothing about the case that called into question the College's central values," Nelson said. "We are reminded that there's a constant need to be communicating with students about their responsibilities under the Honor Code."
Not only does Nelson feel that Dartmouth's procedure for handling allegations of cheating worked, he believes it was validated.
"The process for investigating and reviewing and making determinations about this case worked very, very well," Nelson said. "We did what we say we do when we have violations of College standards."
"I think if there's some good that came out of the case, it's that it raised the issue of academic integrity very high on the campus."
Timeline
The CS4 cheating scandal proper stemmed from a homework assignment given out at the end January, in which Dwyer asked students to complete a program that ran a memory game similar to "Concentration," filling in missing lines of code to create a score box and other game features.
Suspicion initially arose after Dwyer failed to reprotect his sample solution to the difficult assignment, which he had put on the Internet for use during an in-class demonstration. More than 40 students allegedly accessed the site on Feb. 2 and 3 to get the answers to the homework, which was worth only a small part of the final grade.
The scandal quickly took on a life of its own. Dwyer criticized students and the computer science department, saying he had expected more from Ivy League students and complaining that the department had failed to provide adequate support.
Meanwhile, teaching assistants and students attacked Dwyer's handling of the course and even suggested that Dwyer had written the assignment and failed to protect the solutions intentionally, intending to entrap students.
Things only got worse after Dwyer submitted his evidence to the COS, implicating -- to varying degrees -- 78 students, about half of the class. That number included not only the students who had allegedly gotten the answers off the Web, but also many students who had received help from teaching assistants and class graders.
Sixty-three students were told they would definitely have hearings before the COS, while 15 were told they were under investigation.
But after listening to only 27 of the 63 cases set to be heard, the COS announced on March 10 that, while the committee believed that some students did in fact cheat, all charges were being dropped because of the impossibility of distinguishing between those who got the solutions from the Internet and those who received more legitimate help.
"The Committee concluded that some cheating did occur," Dean of the College and non-voting COS chair James Larimore wrote in a letter to the Dartmouth community. "But the nature and quality of the evidence, combined with the circumstances under which the course was conducted, made it impossible to distinguish between those responsible and those not responsible for violations of the Academic Honor Principle."
The incident made national news, including coverage by the Boston ABC and NBC affiliates and front page stories in the Boston Globe, not to mention the many other media outlets across the U.S. that picked up the story from the Associated Press and U-Wire.
