Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 12554
Submitted: December 31, 2024 at 3:53:59 PM
First Name: Anson
Last Name: El-Ayari
Pronoun: He/Him
Student Number: 20400333
Email: 22qmvy@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BCH
Plan: COMP
Level of Study: 2
Appeal Category Detail: Academic Integrity Decision Appeal
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: Dear Madam or Sir,
I am writing to formally appeal the illegal use of AI accusation related to my Assignment 2 submission for CISC 203. I deeply value academic integrity, and trust in the universities process and policies. I do believe that my work on this assignment was conducted within the bounds of course policies. My appeal seeks to clarify this, provide evidence of independent work, and address any concerns regarding the use of AI in completing this assignment.
The foundation of this accusation was built on the fact that the methods used in my assignment differed from those taught in class. This is due to my approach of supplementing the course material with external resources to enhance my understanding of problem solving techniques. In younger years, I did many extra-curricular math-based activities, like Spirit of Math, tutors and more, outside of school to really develop a deep understanding of problem solving and mathematics as a whole. Because of this, even in high school, I would get used to using methods taught in these programs, rather than specific methods from my high school classes. Finding methods that I understand the best regardless of if they were introduced in the course was something I had been doing for a long time, and it had never been an issue up until this violation. On top of this, the structure of the course, with three hour lectures held once a week, made it challenging to develop a deep understanding of the material. While I did do my best to attend and actively engage each week, it was not always possible due to unforeseen circumstances. As a result, I would attempt to rely on class notes, which I found sometimes lacked clarity. This is what really drove me to research other methods on the web which would allow me to get a deeper understanding of how to approach the questions in this class, which I incorporated on my assignment.
To address the concerns raised, I provided all of my ChatGPT logs and the various websites and YouTube videos in which I got my methods from, with the main goal of demonstrating my transparency and commitment to resolving the issue. My logs show that there is no mention of this course, or the content related to it. I am aware of the severity of academic integrity violations, and never use artificial intelligence with the intent of violating guidelines or rules of a course.
To address the key points in the findings form, to begin, the findings appeared inconsistent and shifted focus throughout the process. Initially, the concern was that my assignment used methods not taught in class, but later shifted to highlight the use of **text** in my assignment. As previously mentioned, I had tutors and was apart of extra-curricular math programs throughout high school, so using different methods than the ones taught in class was nothing new to me. I also showed the online resources I used that align with my methods, and my ChatGPT logs to collaborate this. In terms of the **text** formatting in my assignment, anyone who uses Latex (software used for this course) knows that it can be challenging to incorporate specific elements into your document. The way I approach weighted evaluations is to do all the questions I am confident with first, and then come back to more challenging questions. I often use highlighting as a tool to emphasize which questions I need to reevaluate or come back to. Because this is more complicated in Latex (involves importing new packages), I instead began to use the '*' asterisk or bold text to emphasize. Before submission of my work, I always skim through it to ensure all my notations are removed, but do occasionally miss text. For this, all I can say was it was an honest mistake, and I should have been more attentive ensuring my assignment had no formatting mistakes before submission. Going forward I will definitely do a better job of this.
I do understand the severity of academic integrity violations, and I really hope this letter has come across honest and genuine. I know that my assignment has already been graded which is why I am willing to accept the current grade as an accommodation, to save time remarking and as a consequence of this process. With this being said, I hope my letter urges the committee to reevaluate applying a level 1 strike to my academic record. Finally, I wanted to thank all parties for their time in giving me a fair appeal, and really appreciate the process.
Thank you for your consideration and enjoy the holidays,
Anson El-ayari (20400333)
I am writing to formally appeal the illegal use of AI accusation related to my Assignment 2 submission for CISC 203. I deeply value academic integrity, and trust in the universities process and policies. I do believe that my work on this assignment was conducted within the bounds of course policies. My appeal seeks to clarify this, provide evidence of independent work, and address any concerns regarding the use of AI in completing this assignment.
The foundation of this accusation was built on the fact that the methods used in my assignment differed from those taught in class. This is due to my approach of supplementing the course material with external resources to enhance my understanding of problem solving techniques. In younger years, I did many extra-curricular math-based activities, like Spirit of Math, tutors and more, outside of school to really develop a deep understanding of problem solving and mathematics as a whole. Because of this, even in high school, I would get used to using methods taught in these programs, rather than specific methods from my high school classes. Finding methods that I understand the best regardless of if they were introduced in the course was something I had been doing for a long time, and it had never been an issue up until this violation. On top of this, the structure of the course, with three hour lectures held once a week, made it challenging to develop a deep understanding of the material. While I did do my best to attend and actively engage each week, it was not always possible due to unforeseen circumstances. As a result, I would attempt to rely on class notes, which I found sometimes lacked clarity. This is what really drove me to research other methods on the web which would allow me to get a deeper understanding of how to approach the questions in this class, which I incorporated on my assignment.
To address the concerns raised, I provided all of my ChatGPT logs and the various websites and YouTube videos in which I got my methods from, with the main goal of demonstrating my transparency and commitment to resolving the issue. My logs show that there is no mention of this course, or the content related to it. I am aware of the severity of academic integrity violations, and never use artificial intelligence with the intent of violating guidelines or rules of a course.
To address the key points in the findings form, to begin, the findings appeared inconsistent and shifted focus throughout the process. Initially, the concern was that my assignment used methods not taught in class, but later shifted to highlight the use of **text** in my assignment. As previously mentioned, I had tutors and was apart of extra-curricular math programs throughout high school, so using different methods than the ones taught in class was nothing new to me. I also showed the online resources I used that align with my methods, and my ChatGPT logs to collaborate this. In terms of the **text** formatting in my assignment, anyone who uses Latex (software used for this course) knows that it can be challenging to incorporate specific elements into your document. The way I approach weighted evaluations is to do all the questions I am confident with first, and then come back to more challenging questions. I often use highlighting as a tool to emphasize which questions I need to reevaluate or come back to. Because this is more complicated in Latex (involves importing new packages), I instead began to use the '*' asterisk or bold text to emphasize. Before submission of my work, I always skim through it to ensure all my notations are removed, but do occasionally miss text. For this, all I can say was it was an honest mistake, and I should have been more attentive ensuring my assignment had no formatting mistakes before submission. Going forward I will definitely do a better job of this.
I do understand the severity of academic integrity violations, and I really hope this letter has come across honest and genuine. I know that my assignment has already been graded which is why I am willing to accept the current grade as an accommodation, to save time remarking and as a consequence of this process. With this being said, I hope my letter urges the committee to reevaluate applying a level 1 strike to my academic record. Finally, I wanted to thank all parties for their time in giving me a fair appeal, and really appreciate the process.
Thank you for your consideration and enjoy the holidays,
Anson El-ayari (20400333)
Academic Plan
Academic Plan: Moving forward, I will definitely take this process to heart and ensure it is a learning experience in regards to my future work. I am also committed to ensuring that my work fully reflects the methods and concepts emphasized in class. To achieve this, I plan to limit reliance on external resources, and get a better understanding of course concepts through office hours and emails with TA's or Profs. In the case that I do use external sources, I will maintain records to ensure transparency and clarity in the case that something like this does comes up. I will also ensure that I am citing sources. Finally, I will make sure that all annotations are removed from my work, and it is checked over thoroughly.
I do understand the severity of academic integrity, which is why I want to reemphasize that I will take this whole process as a learning experience to ensure nothing like this mistakenly comes up again.
I do understand the severity of academic integrity, which is why I want to reemphasize that I will take this whole process as a learning experience to ensure nothing like this mistakenly comes up again.
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: NO DOC
Document: anson-chat.pdf
Documentation Detail: All of my ChatGPT history