Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

I am writing this letter to appeal the sanction that has been placed on me and would ask for a re-evaluation. I believe that the interviewer has breached the process of 1.2 procedural fairness. During the interview, I do not believe that the decision-maker was free from bias or the reasonable apprehension of bias. Throughout the entire interview, it was apparent that the decision-maker did not want to listen to the evidence and statements I presented. Despite my attempts at clearly outlining my situation, the decision-maker continuously presented useless anecdotes that did not relate to my situation, notably comparing minor plagiarism on an ungraded assignment to marketing faulty code for heart monitors. I do not believe that the instructor came into the meeting with an open mind and was not free from bias. Additionally, I was not informed about the different sanctions that could be given or the reason why the sanction was placed on me. The only information presented during the interview about the sanction was the sanction itself. When initially presented with evidence no plagiarism detection was presented for my case, instead only a minor comment was highlighted. I believe that since this decision was made on the basis that I have plagiarized my work, I should be presented with the actual plagiarism detection of the code itself, not just a comment.

Additionally, I believe that the decisions made by the decision-maker were not warranted. Mainly ignoring 3.4.1(factors that should be considered). Based on the sanction handed to me I believe that the statements presented in the meeting were not taken into account when a decision was made. During the discussion, I reaffirmed multiple times that I knew the assignment was not going to be marked and that I had purposely left the comments in to inform the marker that the generator was used. I believe that my actions should have been taken into consideration especially since those are mentioned in 3.4.1.1 (mitigating circumstances), evidence that reasonable steps were not taken to bring the standards and expectations regarding academic integrity to the attention of the student. During the meeting I also addressed that I have not participated in any actions outlined in 3.4.1.2 (Aggravating Circumstances), I made it clear that I knew the assignment was going to not be marked and that it was my full intention to have it ungraded, thus no advantage could have been gained from submitting the assignment. There was also no effort to conceal the departure since the comment at the head of the code was intentionally left in.

I believe that the actions I have taken do not warrant the severity of a punishment that was handed to me. Outlined in 3.4.2 The instructor may impose one or more of a range of remedies or sanctions including:
an oral or written warning that such infractions constitute unacceptable behavior;
a learning experience involving rewriting or revising the original work within a stipulated period;
the submission of new or other work within a stipulated period;
the deduction of a partial or total loss of marks for the work or exam;
a deduction of a percentage of the final grade in the course; or
a failing grade (down to a grade of zero) in the course.

The root cause for this case for the breach of academic integrity was due to my misunderstanding of the rules and that they still play to assignments even if they do not count for your final grade. However, since this is my first-time offense, and the assignment did not count for my final grade I believe that jumping from a warning to a deduction of a percentage of the final grade is an extreme and unreasonable punishment.