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On Saturday I had a Computer Science final exam. When I finished it and turned it in my teacher told me that she saw online that I had accessed some file from our course (We have notes and our syllabus/grades posted online on a website) during the beginning of the final. I told her no, and that I was in class the entire time and didn’t touch my phone. What could’ve happened was that my phones browser refreshed the page after a change in connectivity or something and it appeared as if I had accessed that random file(since I had a lot of our notes open on my phone beforehand for studying). She wasn’t hearing any of it and filed a case to my college dean.

After meeting with the dean, he said that unless I have evidence to refute the online access log they have, there is nothing I can do.

My question is, what do I do in this situation? I’ve never felt this helpless since I have no clue how to go about proving against the log, which they count as “hard evidence”. Because of this incident, I’ve failed this class and it was a pre-req for all my classes next quarter.

Does anyone have an idea on what I could possibly do?

EDIT FROM A COMMENT:

OP reports "Unfortunately I failed that class but nothing besides that happened." Happy ending, sort of.

EarlGrey
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lifereallyisunfair
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    If you really did not cheat, then it is really bad luck... because it seems you can not do much unless you have plenty of money and good lawyers but even with this way (which I don't recommend), it is unlikely that it will be fixed before next quarter. – YYY Mar 22 '19 at 21:37
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    Not having the phone in the exam would have been a good starting point... – Solar Mike Mar 22 '19 at 21:41
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    @SolarMike Almost everyone has their phone in the exam room, had I known this could happen I would've shut it off. It was just in my pocket on silent. – lifereallyisunfair Mar 22 '19 at 21:47
  • @YYY I truly didn't, but what can I even say that hasn't already been said? It just really sucks that I'm blamed for something completely out of my control. I had no reason to access that random file as it had almost nothing of importance – lifereallyisunfair Mar 22 '19 at 21:49
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    It may be worth asking the IT people at your school to check their logs to see if they can determine whether there was some event likely to trigger an automatic refresh. – Patricia Shanahan Mar 22 '19 at 22:13
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    Did the access really come from your phone? Do you have any more information regarding the logs? Having an (automated) tool accessing/downloading/updating/indexing files from your home system is not forbidden... – J-Kun Mar 22 '19 at 22:15
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    I ask all students to leave their phones at the front of the room - pages can update as often as ... no harm that way... But it seems like the addiction to a smartphone is worse that alcohol or cigarettes... S we have AA - what will the smartphone equivalent be... any suggestions? – Solar Mike Mar 22 '19 at 22:32
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    You could set up a demonstration showing how your phone’s browser loads pages even when the phone is in sleep mode. That ought to be pretty convincing. – Dan Romik Mar 22 '19 at 23:06
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    @DanRomik I offered exactly that, but then they said “How can we know if that’s what happened?” What do I even say to that? – lifereallyisunfair Mar 23 '19 at 17:50
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    You can say that if they don’t know if that’s what happened then they don’t know you are guilty of cheating and therefore cannot punish you. Just knowing that you may have cheated is meaningless, the same is true for any other student. – Dan Romik Mar 23 '19 at 19:09
  • @DanRomik I guess the college academic judicial process works differently because they’re treating me as “guilty” before innocent and I have to give enough evidence to completely overrule the log, but that is of course impossible. This is equivalent to Google logging your searches and then pinpointing the fact that you searched for something at a certain time. It is possible that your previous search was completed again because the page refreshed, but there is no concrete proof of that happening. The only proof is the log and that’s against me at the moment. – lifereallyisunfair Mar 23 '19 at 22:24
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    I don’t know what college you’re at, but that’s not how things work at any place I’m familiar with. The burden is on them to establish that you‘re guilty with a certain level of confidence - not “beyond reasonable doubt” but at least with more than 50% likelihood. I’ve never heard of a place where it’s assumed you‘re guilty until you prove you’re innocent, and doubt that such a place exists. I advise you to inform yourself on how the judicial process works, then you’ll be in a better position to defend yourself. Don’t just accept that because the dean says something it must be so. Good luck! – Dan Romik Mar 24 '19 at 02:02
  • @DanRomik The dean I mentioned is directly responsible as to whether there was a violation of the code of conduct and if I more likely cheated than not. I can appeal this to a board as well but he said I wouldn’t have much luck. He also mentioned the 50% thing and he said that I have to establish a “preponderance of evidence” against the log. So basically I’m guilty at this point and have to go out of my way to explain this occurrence which is pretty much impossible. To them, the log is there and I’m instantly been “caught cheating”. Unless my teacher/ head of course trusts me I’m out of luck. – lifereallyisunfair Mar 24 '19 at 02:47
  • The demonstration I suggested is exactly what you need to establish preponderance of evidence of your lack of guilt, so we’re back to my original advice. Anyway, I said what I had to say and don’t have anything to add. Good luck getting this sorted out. – Dan Romik Mar 24 '19 at 05:50

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Most universities will have some sort of quasi-judicial appeal process. You can try to navigate it yourself, but I would strongly suggest that you find an expert to help you. Some universities may have an ombudsman or some sort of "public defender" service that provides trained students you can work with. You could also talk to students or faculty who have experience with the process, or even consider hiring a lawyer.

Part of what you'll want to know is who will judge such a case, what sort of evidence you can present, and what "standard of proof" is expected.

Some evidence that you could consider trying to present, if possible:

  • Expert testimony from an impartial person familiar with the online system, to explain that a logged access does not necessarily prove that you actually looked at the information, and to explain how it could happen without your knowledge. For instance, you might be able to get someone from the university's IT office to testify, or a computer science professor. (People who work in technical fields are often pretty sensitive to cases where a poor understanding of technology by those in authority results in an injustice, so I think you might not have too hard a time recruiting someone.)

  • Testimony from other students that they did not see you look at your phone or any other device during the exam

  • Testimony from the professor as to whether she saw you look at your phone, etc

As for your classes for next quarter, it would be worth it to talk to the instructors of those classes. You can tell them that you were charged with dishonesty and you are appealing, but that in any case you have learned the course material. They will typically have the authority to waive the prerequisite requirement, so that you can take their course despite not having passed the previous course, and they might be willing to agree that it serves no purpose to delay your progress through the program by making you retake a course whose material you already learned. This way you can continue to move through your courses even if your appeal is not resolved before the next term starts.

Nate Eldredge
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I am mystified (but not all that mystified) that these academics are computer scientists who cannot decipher or understand what should by rights be a fairly common occurrence in network operations. You apparently consulted something exam-sensitive just prior to the exam, which I guess a lot of students do, and the subsequent glitch apparently affected only yourself, which seems odd. Can someone from your IT shed any light?

In the days when I invigilated exams, phones went into bags and bags had to be left at the front of the room, and I continually made sure there were no devices on the desks and no students were fiddling with something in their laps. Your institution's apparent failure to instate such bread and butter measures is appalling and something you might want to bring up.

Deipatrous
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    In all fairness, browsers don't just randomly reload pages. There's an extra layer of silliness in this whole situation: what's there to prevent the student from downloading the file and access it during the exam without it showing in the server logs? I find it hard to believe that the OP idea of how it happened is how it actually happened without them ever touching the phone or anything (even a home PC waking from sleep would be more feasible). The policy itself, however, sounds dumb anyway. – Lodinn Nov 21 '21 at 12:03
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    Oh wow I didn’t expect a comment on this again haha, this happened more than 2 years ago and I already graduated. Unfortunately I failed that class but nothing besides that happened. @Lodinn exactly, I could’ve just as easily just downloaded everything in advance and access that. But the whole thing was bizarre, no one saw me looking at my phone, and the only thing they had was that log showing I accessed the file(which had nothing of value for the exam, fyi) I’m pretty sure it was because of my jailbroken iPhone and Safari+ tweak that caused this but I remember being able to reproduce it – lifereallyisunfair Nov 22 '21 at 14:13
  • All's well what ends well I suppose :) – Lodinn Nov 23 '21 at 15:05
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    @Lodinn: I discovered my cell phone browser has the behavior OP described. – Joshua Apr 27 '23 at 19:48