CS240 AI Cheating Retrospective

CS 240 had a beginning enrollment of 599 students for the Spring 2026 semester. At the time that the email was sent out, 65 students had withdrawn from the course already. The email above was sent to 207 enrolled students in the course. An almost identical email was sent to 60 additional students that had already dropped the course, since letters would still need to be drafted to the Dean of Students. This represents a little under 45% of the students.

It is worth noting that the standard penalty outlined in the syllabus for an academic integrity violation is stated below:

Academic dishonesty is a serious offense which may result in suspension or expulsion from the University. In addition to any other action taken, such as suspension or expulsion, a grade of F will normally be recorded on the transcripts of students found responsible for acts of academic dishonesty.

"grade of F" is bolded in the syllabus. For first time, minor violations on a single assignment, I typically proceed with the lesser penalty of a score of 0 and a course letter grade deduction.

As one can see from the form above, I lessened the penalty further in this situation partly due to the late deployment of the tool. The consequence would simply have been a 0 for each assignment.

The initial response to this process from my end was surprisingly positive. Before the university intervened, 117 students submitted the form. 108 simply took responsibility for their actions. Only 9 disputed the findings. It is an open question whether this is reflective of their actual behavior or instead something that underscores the purported, and unintentional, potentially coercive nature of the form. Ultimately, 144 students submitted enrollment drop requests for the course after this process began.

I met with well over a dozen students the following day. Every single one of them was apologetic. A handful of them even thanked me, sharing with me that they did not truly understand the ramifications of their actions until I had pursued these cases.

Simultaneously and without my knowledge, contact was being made by people - some invariably parents and students - both with our department head as well as the Dean of Students and other units on campus. I am also told there was significant discussion on the Purdue subreddit, though I have yet to subject myself to a gossip mill of such scale.

Eventually some of this stuff made it to me - including direct emails from individuals. Many of the ones that I saw were anonymous, which leaves one wondering whether they even originated from anyone associated with Purdue. Some were angry, some were abusive, but most, surprisingly, offered praise and support.

Of course this was only the beginning. I soon learned that the local newspaper - the Journal and Courier - had picked up the story. Soon after I was contacted by the Purdue Exponent, our campus newspaper as well. It was a chaotic time, and I was instructed to not speak to the press. So, I refrained from doing so initially. I did ultimately speak to a reporter with the Purdue Exponent after it became apparent that there were already recordings and transcripts of the relevant lectures floating around. You can read their article here. To be fully transparent, I will mention that I am on the board of directors for the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation, which publishes The Exponent. This affiliation did not influence the interview or article.

Meanwhile, things had reached a threshold where our Dean, Dr. Lucy Flesch, had become involved. I met with both her and our Department Head, Dr. Drineas, multiple times over the weekend of 4/18, engaging in fairly involved discussions. Ultimately these distilled down to two primary concerns: that some students may have felt coerced by the timing and format of the form. And, that there could be difficulty ensuring due process given the semester's rapidly approaching end.

Another concern discussed included the fact that the late deployment of Argus removed the opportunity for students to experience lesser consequences resulting from an initial violation and subsequently adjust their behavior. I was less sympathetic to this one, largely due to the clearly articulated course policies combined with the already lesser penalty mentioned above of a 0 for each involved assignment without even a course letter grade deduction or enforcement of the syllabus' stated grade of F.

The due process issue was somewhat less concerning to me as well. Partly because the existing university appeals process was already in place should the resolution at the course level be unsatisfactory. Partly because the students clearly had a mechanism to appeal directly to me before even beginning the sanctioned, university process. Not to mention there have been instances in Purdue's past where academic integrity issues were addressed after the conclusion of a course offering.

The concern that resonated with me the most was the possibility of innocent students feeling coerced. That was never my intention. The timing was, in fact, deliberate, but only because I rushed to get the information out before the university course drop deadline with the goal in mind of keeping that option available for students whose grades would be severely impacted by their actions. In other words, I was trying to give those that would fail a more graceful exit from the course.

In hindsight, I can see how that created a sense of pressure for some - particularly students that may have been incorrectly identified. Having spoken to trusted colleagues, I also see how the format of the form itself could be problematic. Specifically the requirement that they self report on which assignments they used an LLM instead of simply listing the ones that we had identified.

We discussed a number of ways to address the concerns. Ultimately, the decision that was reached was to reverse the retroactive use of the tool on earlier homework submissions. The tool would be used going forward, but any prior incidents identified by Argus would be ignored. Students that had dropped the course would be permitted to re-enroll.

This decision weighed on me, and I actually reached back out on Sunday expressing my concern with the resolution. I suggested again an alternate approach of allowing students to resubmit identified homework assignments, acknowledging that it may have required the assigning a grade of incomplete and resulted in additional work for me over the summer.

We met one final time on Monday morning prior to my first lecture at 9:30am. After further discussion, we settled on sticking to the original resolution.

While all of the above was happening, it was also becoming abundantly clear that a group of people were continuing to stir things up online. I was warned that many individuals not enrolled in the course were intending to show up to the lectures that day in the Class of 50 Lecture Hall. To mitigate this concern, I asked for volunteers from our TAs to ensure that entry was only granted to students enrolled in the course. We also requested that a fire marshal be present to ensure we remained within the capacity constraints for the facility.

I am grateful to the Purdue Fire Department for their presence in the hall during that time. The TAs, as well, did an outstanding job in keeping a chaotic situation under control. They have my sincere gratitude as well.

I want to be clear that our efforts were made solely to ensure people's safety as well as preserve the classroom environment for enrolled students. No attempts were made to control the release of information. In fact, at one point one of the TAs brought to my attention that a student was streaming a recording of the lecture to others outside of the room and asked if they should be told to stop. I unequivocally indicated that it was fine for them to do so in that specific situation.

I started the lecture discussion with the slide below: