21 May WHAT WERE SOME OF THE ETHICAL ISSUES ADDRESSED IN THIS CASE?
Jessica is a straight “A†honor role student in her final semester at a major university.
Towards the end of the final semester, one of Jessica’s professors assigned her and the rest
of the class a fairly long and complicated assignment that was due during the last week of
classes. As usual, Jessica planned to work on the assignment early enough to insure that it
was completed on time.
Jessica started working on the assignment, tackling its requirements one by one, and
everything was going on well with her. However, she soon got stuck on one of the more
technical parts of the assignment. She continued to work everyday for a period of 2 weeks,
trying new ways and tools each day. She tried sending several emails to some of her friends
asking for advice. Unfortunately no one responded to her since they were also busy doing
their own end-of-semester course work. The end result was that finals week arrived and she
was still not even close to finishing.
Jessica was very frustrated and disappointed because she had tried her best, yet she
couldn’t figure out this final assignment. This was the very first time in her college career that
she could not figure out an assignment. In addition, she was also overwhelmed and worried
about her other courses and finals that she had to study and prepare for during the finals
week.
Jessica emailed one of her best friends, David, the night before the assignment was
due and asked him for a copy of his assignment so she could simply get an idea of what she
was doing wrong. David, being a very good friend, sent her his project honoring Jessica
request that she simply wanted to look at what she was doing wrong. David believed that once
Jessica saw his completed work that she could finish her own in short order.
As Jessica looked at David’s work she realized that she really did not have a firm grasp
of the material for this course. She was way over her head on this assignment. She kept
asking herself; how could this have happened? She had started really early on this
assignment and now there were only a few short hours before it was due. The thoughts of
getting a poor grade on this last assignment and how it would ruin her GPA ran through her
head. Would this ruin her chance in getting into a good graduate school?
With three hours left before the assignment was due, Jessica decided to modify David’s
assignment and submit it to the professor as her own. She performed the necessary changes
to the assignment so that the professor wouldn’t suspect her submission, and placed her name
on it. After her submission, Jessica felt a big relief and was so happy that she had finished the
assignment on time. She went back to the dorm and slept for over 12 hours.
After waking up the next day, Jessica mood had changed. She started to feel guilty
about what she had done. To help relieve some of the stress she was feeling, she decided to
confide with her roommate Karen. After explaining what she had done, Karen told her not to
worry about it. She convinced Jessica that since almost everyone at the university cheated at
some time or another that this was no big deal. While Jessica did not feel proud of what she
had done, she decided that maybe this was not a big deal after all.
After agonizing over whether to tell David what she did, she decided it was probably
best to tell him in case something went wrong. She apologized to David and explained that
while she was not proud of what she did, that she had helped David numerous times in the
past and this was no big deal. She explained to David what Karen had said and that this was
a common occurrence among many students.
The instructor of the course discovered the similarities between the two submissions
and called both Jessica and David independently to his office. Jessica was scheduled first and
explained to the instructor that the work she had turned in was indeed her own. In David’s
session, he also explained to the instructor that the work he turned in was his own. The
instructor turned over the original electronic files of both students to a technology friend who
discovered that indeed Jessica had used David’s file as a basis for her submission.
The instructor called both students to his office and presented the new facts. Based on
this new incriminating evidence, Jessica admitted what she had done. She explained that this
was the very first time she had ever engaged in such an act, and that she only did it after trying
her best for long days without any positive outcome. David explained that he didn’t know that
Jessica was going to base her final project on his work.
After much thought, the instructor gave both students a failing grade for the course.
This grade forced a delay in both students graduating on time.
Based on the information presented in this case, please answer the following questions
in bullet-point format, not all in one paragraph:
1. What were some of the ethical issues addressed in this case?
2. What do you think Jessica could have done to prevent this from happening?
3. What do you think if anything did David do wrong? What should he have done?
4. What if anything did Karen do wrong? If so, what should she have done?
5. Why do you think both Jessica and David lied to their instructor?
6. Do you think the professor’s punishment was fair for these first time offenders?
7. What could the professor have done to help mitigate this type of problem?
8. What important lesson did you learn from this case?
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