missing honor code

[centurion]

hello,

I gave an online exam, and asked students to copy an honor pledge onto their exam and sign it. I made it very clear that they have to copy the honor pledge as it is, and sign it, and if they don't do it, it will not be graded.

About 5% of students did not write any honor pledge on their exam and about 5% only copied a portion of it.
Interestingly, the ones who copied a portion, mostly they copied the portion which says they promise not to GIVE aid. But they did not copy the portion that says they will not RECEIVE aid.

Now I am thinking whether I should just give 0 points to all of them, or be a bit more balanced?

Thank you

[research_prof]

hello,

I gave an online exam, and asked students to copy an honor pledge onto their exam and sign it. I made it very clear that they have to copy the honor pledge as it is, and sign it, and if they don't do it, it will not be graded.

About 5% of students did not write any honor pledge on their exam and about 5% only copied a portion of it.
Interestingly, the ones who copied a portion, mostly they copied the portion which says they promise not to GIVE aid. But they did not copy the portion that says they will not RECEIVE aid.

Now I am thinking whether I should just give 0 points to all of them, or be a bit more balanced?

Thank you

If you mentioned that whoever does not copy the honor pledge on their exam will receive 0 points, then yes by all means you should do it. I always write on top of the exam that whoever diverges from the specified terms will be given 0 points and that by submitting the exam they agree with the terms and conditions.

[Ruralguy]

What you are entitled to do really depends on precisely what you told the students. To me, saying you wouldn't grade it isn't the same thing as giving a zero. You can only give 0 points for this if that is what you said you would do.

I wouldn't take off points unless you said you would. Of course you can be more lenient if you want to, but just do that consistently.

[Puget]

That seems rather extreme--  Students under time pressure make mistakes-- I don't think a 0 on an exam is an appropriate punishment (if it were a low-stakes quiz that would be different). How about instead requiring them to submit an assignment on academic integrity?

[centurion]

What you are entitled to do really depends on precisely what you told the students. To me, saying you wouldn't grade it isn't the same thing as giving a zero. You can only give 0 points for this if that is what you said you would do.

I wouldn't take off points unless you said you would. Of course you can be more lenient if you want to, but just do that consistently.

Thanks, but "it will not be graded" isn't that the same that they will get 0 points?

[downer]

hello,

I gave an online exam, and asked students to copy an honor pledge onto their exam and sign it. I made it very clear that they have to copy the honor pledge as it is, and sign it, and if they don't do it, it will not be graded.

About 5% of students did not write any honor pledge on their exam and about 5% only copied a portion of it.
Interestingly, the ones who copied a portion, mostly they copied the portion which says they promise not to GIVE aid. But they did not copy the portion that says they will not RECEIVE aid.

Now I am thinking whether I should just give 0 points to all of them, or be a bit more balanced?

Thank you

If you you made it clear, and said what you will do, then do it. If you don't then they will know not to take you seriously.

Then you will get them emailing you with all sorts of responses. That's when you can give them some kind of second chance.

[Ruralguy]

No...saying it won't be graded could be construed as "it won't count for your grade."  I'm not saying that most students should or would see it that way, but your statement is a little ambiguous.

[centurion]

Indeed, that is a valid point. But would a grade appeal committee consider  such an argument if they do appeal? That would seem a bit odd. 

[clean]

"It will not be graded" seems pretty crystal clear to me!!

Follow the instructions you gave!  Do not grade them! 

Then, instead of requiring an honesty policy... which, let's face it, is as good as the honesty of the student... IF they will cheat, they will lie on the honesty policy!.... SO use something that does or at least makes it look like you are watching!  Use Respondus Monitor, or better, Examity or ProctorU services that will watch AND record them. 

[OneMoreYear]

My grade appeal committee would likely interpret the statement as "I won't grade your test until I have a signed copy of the honor code."  So, my department would 1st recommend that I email students and request that they send the signed statement by XXXX date, or late penalties will begin to accrue. But, your place could be different than mine.

Then they would recommend that, if you are going to use a signed honor code statement, the next test is set up such that students need to sign the honor code before they can access the test questions to prevent this problem in the future.

But, I'm not sure how effective these statements are anyway.

ETA: I agree with clean that proctoring is a better option if possible.

[downer]

"It will not be graded" seems pretty crystal clear to me!!

Follow the instructions you gave!  Do not grade them! 

Then, instead of requiring an honesty policy... which, let's face it, is as good as the honesty of the student... IF they will cheat, they will lie on the honesty policy!.... SO use something that does or at least makes it look like you are watching!  Use Respondus Monitor, or better, Examity or ProctorU services that will watch AND record them.

There's evidence that honor codes reduce cheating.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/opinion/sunday/online-learning-cheating.html

[Hibush]

You don't have much choice now. You have to do what you said you would.

If the number of missing honor statements is higher than the number of anticipated cheats, then you might alter your instructions a bit. Next time.

[Caracal]

You don't have much choice now. You have to do what you said you would.

If the number of missing honor statements is higher than the number of anticipated cheats, then you might alter your instructions a bit. Next time.

Well, no, part of being in charge is that you can decide not to apply some penalty or rule if it seems like a bad idea. You couldn't give a zero to some students who didn't do it and not others, but you can certainly decide not to apply it at all.

I don't really understand what the point of this is. If the honor pledge is the school honor code, they already are bound to it. Schools with a strong honor code often have students sign something at convocation, but for your purposes, it doesn't really matter They don't need to sign anything. It isn't like if you don't sign the pledge you just get to cheat.

Grade penalties should be proportional and there should be a good rationale for them. I can't see how failing students because they failed to copy and paste some text at the beginning of their exam meets either of those tests.

[Hegemony]

I agree with Caracal. This seems very draconian. And the fact that so few students did it suggests to me that you put the instructions in some place that was not obvious to the students. If you wanted them to do it you should have arranged the exam something like this:

1. Below is the text of the Honor Code. Copy this out in the following blank and sign it to show that you will abide by it. Any exam that does not include this will receive an F.
"I agree to abide by..." [etc.]


2. Solve the following equation...

[And so on.]

But I think giving a failing grade for failing to follow one piece of probably badly designed direction is too harsh. It doesn't mean that the students who failed to copy the Honor Code all cheated. And it doesn't mean that they don't know the material that the class is actually supposed to teach.

[kaysixteen]

I actually worked at a school once that had such a code and required professors to place honor code affirmation statements for student signatures on all quizzes and tests, and required students to include one in any papers.   That said, if no such uni policy exists, why would a professor unilateraly impose one, and sanction a student refusing or forgetting to do so?   What is the point?   Would punishment imposed for cheaters caught who had signed such a statement be more stringent than those who eschewed signing?   In the real world, adults do not have to sign statements indicating intention of obeying the law.  This sort of reminds me of the MASH ep where Hawkeye risked involuntary discharge when it was discovered he had not signed his loyalty oath.  BJ was jealous.... and Hawkeye did not get his discharge.