“This is a massive deal for the hundreds of students who are in the class now,” said Nick Camarda, a Duke junior currently enrolled in the course.
Keith Lawrence, a Duke spokesman, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
Jeffrey Forbes, a Duke professor of computer science, sent an email Nov. 5 to students enrolled in the class this semester that an investigation had launched into students’ past homework and problem sets containing common answers among classmates and solutions downloaded from the Internet.
The email said if students with no prior offenses came forward voluntarily by Nov. 12, they would receive a faculty-student resolution, where nothing would appear on their external disciplinary record.
Students with prior academic offenses who come forward would be subject to greater consequences, and students who are caught after the deadline will face the Office of Student Conduct without any recommendations of leniency.
Camarda said he thinks the faculty has mishandled the situation, causing panic for all students in the course regardless of if they cheated.
“The email came off as a scare tactic,” he said.
He said although some students use cloud-based sharing sites like GitHub to cheat, many students collaborate in a way that follows course policy.
