integrity remedy

Hello,
I might have possibly taken a wee bit of extra time to finish after the invigilator said stop during my last exam- not above a minute. My counsellor at Accessibility Services wrote to inform me I’d be contacted about that by the Office of Academic Offences or some body that deals with them. One of my half-courses on ROSI reads reads GWR so I’m assuming that stands for Grade Withheld Pending Review and I’m assuming this is the course I’ve been written up for. I topped the previous assignment and have been doing alright in it so far. No one has contacted me yet. Will I lose some points on the exam? What’s going to happen to me?
Thanks,
A Careworn Student Who Just Wants a Reprieve From All the Worrying Over the Holidays

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hey there,

well, the holidays are over now. i hope you didn’t do too much worrying. if it helps, i got horrendously sick over the break, so i wasn’t having the jolliest of times either.

the golden document related to academic integrity at this school is the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters – which sounds very official and scary but is actually quite accessible and reasonable if you take the time to read it.

bear with me for a second. head over to page 4, section C.i.(a) Divisional Procedures of the Code. you’ll see that the first steps are meeting with the instructor and the dean, and then – at number 8 – they decide whether or not to impose a sanction.

the sanctions are listed in the next section, C.i.(b) and start off with relatively minor sanctions like an oral/written reprimand, requiring that you resubmit the exam, or a grade of zero (which is a bit more severe).

if this is your first offence, and you are honest during your meeting with the dean/whomever you meet with, the sanctions will likely not be too severe.

that said, academic offences are serious business for an institution that grants degrees based on academic achievements, so i wouldn’t say there’s nothing to worry about. but don’t beat yourself up about it – both you and the office want to figure out something that’s fair for you.

if you’re really nervous, you can make an appointment with your registrar to discuss the meeting and how you can expect it to go.

all the best,

aska