Petition Letter
Dear Board of Studies,
My name is Natalia Verdugo, I am a first year student in the Arts and Science Faculty hoping to major in Psychology. I am appealing to the Associate Dean??s decision to revise my final exam mark for the PSYCH100 fall exam mark. On December 8, I took the fall exam; when it came to submitting my short answers I ran into some problems with the dropbox submission. Instead of using the dropbox, I sent an email to the corresponding PSYCH100 instructors submitting my responses. In spite of these complications, I sent the email right before the grace period ended. I later found out that I used my personal email rather than my school email when sending in my short answers. When I noticed my error, I called the exam ITS services and they said that as long as I sent in my short answers to the PSYCH100 faculty without altering the document, there should be no consequence. Thus, that is what I did. This exam was my first university exam ever, I did not have Microsoft Word but instead used a program installed in my MacBook called Pages.
When sending the email from my school account, I ensured that the timestamps of when the document was downloaded were present, to prove I completed and submitted the exam in a timely manner as instructed. Unfortunately, since I used Pages instead of Microsoft Word the PSYCH100 team was not able to accurately determine if the document was manipulated. As a result, they offered to let me retake the short answers during the deferred exam period but with a 20% penalty. I understand that not having Microsoft Word was an error on my behalf; but, I completed the exam on time, and did not find this penalty fair as many of these circumstances were out of my control. I took the exam again as I did not want to receive a zero or fail an exam I studied so hard for.
In regards to the deferred exam, I downloaded Microsoft Word and submitted my answers successfully. However, I received an email from the PSYCH100 team stating there were some concerns with my responses as they contained verbatim overlapping with other sources. When evaluating the TurnItIn report, I found that the sources that corresponded with my work were sources that I have never come across, and frankly are not even remotely connected to my work. Most of the flagged content were the exam questions themselves, which accounted for 51% of the plagiarism. This is not valid and should not be taken into account as it is merely the questions that I am answering on my exam. The rest was 16% which were definitions that I studied for prior to the exam. The PSYCH100 team made it clear that we were allowed to use our notes during the short answer as well as the content from the PSYCH100 textbook.
I do believe I did not plagiarize as the information I used was standard definitions that were memorized for the exam. Further, I made sure to reference the PSYCH100 textbook to ensure that the information was accredited for. I spend hours a week taking the textbook notes from the PSYCH100 textbook, and proved this by sharing my notes with coordinator Meghan Norris. I eventually received my grade from my deferred exam and thought no further of this matter since I had not been contacted by anyone. Around a week later I received an email from Meghan Norris explaining that my mark will be changed to a 0 as I seemingly violated academic integrity. I emailed Ms. Norris back arranging a meeting to explain myself and my innocence in the matter. She then said she would take a closer look at my exam and let me know. I did not receive any communication, so I emailed again and finally recently received an email stating there would be no change to my grade. My last email to Meghan was March 3, and when I found I was not making any progress in my situation, I spoke to an academic advisor in which they recommended I submit an appeal.
I found this extremely disheartening as the grounds for retaking the exam and receiving the penalty were out of my control to begin with, and the plagiarism scores from TurnItIn can be easily refuted. A large percentage flagged is from the content itself, with the rest being ?common knowledge?? about psychology terms that thousands of students taking this course would be writing, almost verbatim. A lot of this is factual information with little leeway to personalize or alter. I have been fighting for this exam since December 8, and have continued to fight. If I knew I was in the wrong, I would not keep pursuing this matter and risk a grave penalty or serious academic disciplinary actions. This situation has seriously affected my mental health; my anxiety has worsened and my motivation for school plummeted. I am finding it difficult to continue being motivated for psychology ?? a field of study I love ?? after not being able to resolve this matter. I am more than willing to provide any and all information needed, and to talk about this further should you need clarification. I thank you for considering my appeal, and hope to hear regarding my appeal soon.
Sincerely,
Natalia Verdugo
My name is Natalia Verdugo, I am a first year student in the Arts and Science Faculty hoping to major in Psychology. I am appealing to the Associate Dean??s decision to revise my final exam mark for the PSYCH100 fall exam mark. On December 8, I took the fall exam; when it came to submitting my short answers I ran into some problems with the dropbox submission. Instead of using the dropbox, I sent an email to the corresponding PSYCH100 instructors submitting my responses. In spite of these complications, I sent the email right before the grace period ended. I later found out that I used my personal email rather than my school email when sending in my short answers. When I noticed my error, I called the exam ITS services and they said that as long as I sent in my short answers to the PSYCH100 faculty without altering the document, there should be no consequence. Thus, that is what I did. This exam was my first university exam ever, I did not have Microsoft Word but instead used a program installed in my MacBook called Pages.
When sending the email from my school account, I ensured that the timestamps of when the document was downloaded were present, to prove I completed and submitted the exam in a timely manner as instructed. Unfortunately, since I used Pages instead of Microsoft Word the PSYCH100 team was not able to accurately determine if the document was manipulated. As a result, they offered to let me retake the short answers during the deferred exam period but with a 20% penalty. I understand that not having Microsoft Word was an error on my behalf; but, I completed the exam on time, and did not find this penalty fair as many of these circumstances were out of my control. I took the exam again as I did not want to receive a zero or fail an exam I studied so hard for.
In regards to the deferred exam, I downloaded Microsoft Word and submitted my answers successfully. However, I received an email from the PSYCH100 team stating there were some concerns with my responses as they contained verbatim overlapping with other sources. When evaluating the TurnItIn report, I found that the sources that corresponded with my work were sources that I have never come across, and frankly are not even remotely connected to my work. Most of the flagged content were the exam questions themselves, which accounted for 51% of the plagiarism. This is not valid and should not be taken into account as it is merely the questions that I am answering on my exam. The rest was 16% which were definitions that I studied for prior to the exam. The PSYCH100 team made it clear that we were allowed to use our notes during the short answer as well as the content from the PSYCH100 textbook.
I do believe I did not plagiarize as the information I used was standard definitions that were memorized for the exam. Further, I made sure to reference the PSYCH100 textbook to ensure that the information was accredited for. I spend hours a week taking the textbook notes from the PSYCH100 textbook, and proved this by sharing my notes with coordinator Meghan Norris. I eventually received my grade from my deferred exam and thought no further of this matter since I had not been contacted by anyone. Around a week later I received an email from Meghan Norris explaining that my mark will be changed to a 0 as I seemingly violated academic integrity. I emailed Ms. Norris back arranging a meeting to explain myself and my innocence in the matter. She then said she would take a closer look at my exam and let me know. I did not receive any communication, so I emailed again and finally recently received an email stating there would be no change to my grade. My last email to Meghan was March 3, and when I found I was not making any progress in my situation, I spoke to an academic advisor in which they recommended I submit an appeal.
I found this extremely disheartening as the grounds for retaking the exam and receiving the penalty were out of my control to begin with, and the plagiarism scores from TurnItIn can be easily refuted. A large percentage flagged is from the content itself, with the rest being ?common knowledge?? about psychology terms that thousands of students taking this course would be writing, almost verbatim. A lot of this is factual information with little leeway to personalize or alter. I have been fighting for this exam since December 8, and have continued to fight. If I knew I was in the wrong, I would not keep pursuing this matter and risk a grave penalty or serious academic disciplinary actions. This situation has seriously affected my mental health; my anxiety has worsened and my motivation for school plummeted. I am finding it difficult to continue being motivated for psychology ?? a field of study I love ?? after not being able to resolve this matter. I am more than willing to provide any and all information needed, and to talk about this further should you need clarification. I thank you for considering my appeal, and hope to hear regarding my appeal soon.
Sincerely,
Natalia Verdugo