ACTIVITY REPORT - SENATE APPEALS COMMITTEE TO THE SENATE
July 1st, 2011 to June 30, 2012
INTRODUCTION
The following report of the Senate Appeals Committee (the “Committee”) is presented to the Senate pursuant to the Committee’s Terms of Reference, which provide that the Committee shall present a report of its activities to the Senate once a year, or upon request from the Senate or its Executive Committee.
FUNCTIONS
The Committee’s functions are detailed in its Terms of Reference, which stipulate that the Committee makes a final decision on the following matters:
- any appeal submitted by a student concerning the application of regulations governing admissions, promotions and degree requirements, and any other academic regulations of the University;
- any recommendation of disciplinary sanction, or appeal of a disciplinary sanction, in accordance with relevant Senate regulations;
- any other appeal referred to the Committee by the Senate or its Executive Committee.
In practice, the great majority of the Committee’s work is concerned with student-initiated appeals related to the application of academic regulations. A much smaller percentage of the Committee’s work is faculty-initiated, i.e. the imposition, upon faculty recommendation, of the more serious sanctions contemplated in the regulations concerning academic fraud and computer misuse.
The Committee also recommends to the Senate any change which it deems appropriate with respect to the regulations and procedures which it is entrusted to apply.
MEMBERSHIP
The Senate Appeals Committee consists of eight members, including six full-time regular professors (at least three of whom must be members of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies), one undergraduate student member, and one graduate student member. Members of the Committee are appointed by the Executive Committee of the Senate, which also designates a Chair and Vice-Chair from amongst the members of the Committee. Mandates are for a three-year period and are renewable.
The current members of the Committee are:
- Currie, John H. - Professor, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, Chair
- Dallaire, Christine - Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences
- Fall, Mamadou - Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering
- Fortier, Pierre - Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Vice-Chair
- Gélinas-Faucher, Bruno - Undergraduate student, Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section
- Greco, Christopher - Graduate student, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies
- Hallett, William - Professor, Faculty of Engineering
- Philie, Patrice - Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts
Past members of the Committee who served during the period July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012 but whose mandates have expired or who have retired from the Committee are: Mr. Eric Cormier, graduate student; Ms. Anaïs Elboujdaïni, undergraduate student; Professor Mary-Ellen Harper, Faculty of Medicine; Professor Andrew Taylor, Faculty of Arts; and Professor Pierrette Guimond, Faculty of Health Sciences.
Five members constitute a quorum for purposes of meetings of the Committee. The Chair (or in his or her absence the Vice-Chair) does not vote other than to break a tie vote among other members of the Committee. The Vice-President, Governance is entitled to participate in the deliberations of the Committee but does not vote.
ACTIVITIES
In general, the Committee meets every second week throughout the year, unless there is no business to dispose of or quorum cannot be attained. During the period July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012, the Committee met a total of 19 times and dealt with a total of 82 cases.
Of this total of 82 cases, 75 were student-initiated appeals and seven were faculty-initiated recommendations of serious sanctions for fraud. In the latter category, the fraud sanctions recommended by the relevant academic unit were affirmed by the Committee in five of the seven cases and varied in the remaining two.
With respect to the 75 student-initiated appeals received by the Committee:
- student’s appeal was granted in whole or in part in 17 cases (22.7%);
- the student’s appeal was denied in 50 cases (66.7%); and
- the student’s appeal was withdrawn or abandoned by the student in eight cases (10.6%).
Excluding cases withdrawn or abandoned by the student, approximately 25.4% of student-initiated appeals were successful whereas approximately 74.6% were unsuccessful.
The following tables provide further details concerning the 82 cases dealt with by the Committee in the period July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012, first with respect to academic unit of provenance and second with respect to type (subject-matter) of the case:
|
CASES BY ACADEMIC UNIT OF PROVENANCE 2011-2012 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Academic Unit |
Number of Cases |
Percentage of All Cases |
Academic Unit’s Total Enrolment 2011-2012 |
Percentage of Total University Enrolment 2011-2012 |
|
Arts |
3 |
3.7 % |
6595 |
16.2% |
|
Education |
3 |
3.7 % |
1707 |
4.2% |
|
Civil Law |
2 |
2.4 % |
812 |
2% |
|
Common Law |
25 |
30.5% |
1203 |
3% |
|
Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies |
15 |
18.3 % |
6004 |
14.8% |
|
Engineering |
7 |
8.5 % |
2246 |
5.5% |
|
Medicine |
- |
- |
2016 |
5% |
|
Science |
4 |
4.9 % |
3879 |
9.5% |
|
Health Sciences |
10 |
12.1 % |
3859 |
9.5% |
|
Social Sciences |
- |
- |
8759 |
21.5% |
|
Telfer |
13 |
15.9 % |
3577 |
8.8% |
|
Total |
82 |
100% |
40657 |
100% |
|
CASES BY TYPE 2011-2012 |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Type |
Number Of Cases |
Percentage of All Cases |
|
Grade review |
33 |
40.2% |
|
Mandatory withdrawal |
19 |
23.2% |
|
Fraud |
17 |
21% |
|
Removal of grade from transcript |
- |
- |
|
Degree entitlement |
- |
- |
|
Retroactive drop / extension of drop date |
2 |
2.4% |
|
Admission / readmission |
1 |
1.2% |
|
Deferral / permission to rewrite examination / assignment |
5 |
6% |
|
Other |
5 |
6% |
|
Total |
82 |
100% |
PROCESSING TIMES
Pursuant to the Committee’s rules of procedure, a student wishing to appeal a faculty-level decision must file his or her appeal, along with supporting argument and documentation, within 10 working days of receipt of the decision from which the appeal is to be taken. Thereafter, the relevant academic unit is required to file its responding comments on the appeal, along with any supporting documentation, within 15 working days; and the student is then required to submit any final written comments or other information, in reply to the academic unit’s submissions, within a final 15 working days. The appeal is then inscribed on the agenda of the Committee for hearing either at its next meeting or (as students have the right to appear in person before the Committee) at the next meeting of the Committee which the student is able to attend.
The Committee endeavours, whenever possible, to render a decision on a case on the same day it is heard, and to advise the student in writing of the outcome within one business day of the decision. On occasion, however, the Committee may determine that additional information is required before rendering a decision, in which event the case is decided at the next Committee meeting following receipt of the additional information and any further submissions the student may have with respect to that additional information.
In the period July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012, the overall average elapsed time from receipt of a student’s appeal to final disposition of that appeal was 50.8 working days (compared to 54 working days in 2010-2011). Of this total, 15.3 working days were attributable to the academic unit (i.e. average time taken to provide comments in response to student’s appeal or additional information requested by the Committee); 18.3 working days were attributable to the student (i.e. average time taken to reply to academic unit’s comments or provide additional supporting documentation to the Committee, student requests for a deferred hearing date etc.); and 17.2 working days were attributable to the Committee (i.e. average processing time or time taken from appeal file being complete to hearing and disposition of appeal).
With respect to faculty-initiated recommendations of serious sanctions for fraud during the same period, the overall average elapsed time from receipt of the faculty’s sanction recommendation to final disposition by the Committee was 68.6 working days. Of this total, 60.8 working days were attributable to the student (i.e. average time taken to submit comments to the Committee in response to the faculty’s recommendation); and 7.8 working days were attributable to the Committee (i.e. average processing time or time taken from file being complete to hearing and final imposition of sanction).
OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE COMMITTEE
Observations
During the reporting period and since, the Committee has implemented a number of administrative measures designed to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. These have included changes to the content of communications with students (e.g. in order to clarify the nature, preferred format and timing of student submissions); the elaboration of guidelines to be followed by faculties when preparing and submitting their comments to the Committee in response to student appeals (see sample, attached as Appendix A); and various amendments to the Committee’s procedures in order, for example, to encourage students to submit all relevant documentation early in the appeal process, or to clarify the nature of the student’s right to be accompanied when appearing before the Committee.
Recommendations
As indicated above, the Committee’s Terms of Reference permit it to recommend to the Senate any change it deems appropriate with respect to the regulations it is entrusted to apply. In this year’s report, the Committee recommends consideration by the Senate of two potential amendments to the Regulation on Academic Fraud, as follows:
1. Fraud Concerning Students from Different Faculties:
Section 14 of the Regulation on Academic Fraud currently provides:
Fraud concerning more than one student
14. When [an] allegation of academic fraud involves students from different faculties, the case is submitted to the Faculty that offers the course, in accordance with the procedure set out in this regulation. At the graduate level, allegations of academic fraud are submitted to the dean of the FGPS.
The Committee interprets the intent of this provision to be to ensure that fraud allegations involving students from different faculties are resolved through a single investigatory process administered by a single faculty (thus avoiding the potential for conflicting outcomes of parallel investigatory processes in different faculties). However, some courses are jointly offered by more than one faculty. As the current formulation of section 14 does not clearly address such situations, the Committee recommends that the Senate consider amending section 14 of the Regulation on Academic Fraud in order to clarify the procedure that should be followed in cases of academic fraud involving students from different academic units where more than one academic unit offers the course in which the fraud is alleged to have been committed.
2. Additional Sanctions for Particular Cases of Academic Fraud:
Section 2 of the Regulation on Academic Fraud sets out an apparently exhaustive list of sanctions for academic fraud, as follows:
2. A student who has committed or attempted to commit academic fraud, or who has been a party to academic fraud, is subject to one or more of the following sanctions:
a) a written reprimand;
b) the mark of F or zero for part of the work concerned;
c) the mark of F or zero for the work concerned;
d) the mark of F or zero for the work concerned and the loss of additional marks for the course concerned;
e) the mark of F or zero for the work concerned, with no more than the passing grade as a final mark for the course concerned;
f) the mark of F or zero for the course concerned;
g) the loss of all or part of the credits for the academic year concerned (the courses for which credits were withdrawn remain in the student’s file – they are included in the grade point average and must be repeated or replaced by other courses at the discretion of the Faculty);
h) an additional requirement of 3 to 30 credits added to the student’s program of studies (additional credit requirements that are added to the student’s program of studies as part of an academic fraud sanction will also apply to any subsequent program of the same level in which the student registers);
i) the loss of any opportunity to receive a scholarship from the Faculty for one year;
j) the loss of any opportunity to receive a scholarship from the Faculty until graduation;
k) suspension from the program or from the Faculty, for at least one session and at most three academic years;
l) expulsion from the Faculty;
m) the loss of any opportunity to receive a scholarship from the University of Ottawa for one year;
n) the loss of any opportunity to receive a scholarship from the University of Ottawa until graduation;
o) expulsion from the University of Ottawa for at least three years, it being understood that three years after being expelled, the student concerned may ask the Senate Appeals Committee to review his or her case, with the possibility, where applicable, of having the notice of expulsion withdrawn from the student’s transcript – if the student reapplies for admission, the regular admission process shall apply;
p) cancellation or revocation of a degree, diploma or certificate where the offence relates to the eligibility to receive such degree, diploma or certificate, and which was discovered or determined after its award;
q) inclusion of the following statement in the student’s academic transcript: “Sanction pursuant to contravention of the University regulation on fraud.”
The Committee observes that this list provides only a very limited range of potential sanctions for acts of academic fraud that are (1) unrelated to evaluation in a specific course and (2) committed by a student who is near or at the end of his or her studies at the University of Ottawa. For example, if a student, having completed his or her program or degree requirements but prior to receiving his or her degree, were to forge or falsify a University of Ottawa transcript in order to gain admission to another university or obtain related scholarship funding (among the most serious acts of academic fraud contemplated in the Regulation), it would appear that the only potentially effective sanctions that could be imposed would be sanctions 2(h) and (q). Moreover, if the same act of fraud were only discovered after the student had received his or her University of Ottawa degree, the only apparently available and (arguably) effective sanction would be sanction 2(q).
The Committee therefore recommends that the Senate consider amending section 2 of the Regulation on Academic Fraud in order to provide for additional sanctions that could be applied in the following cases:
- where an act of academic fraud is committed by a student who has completed all of his or her degree or program requirements, but the act of academic fraud is unrelated to evaluation in a specific course;
- where an act of academic fraud is committed by a student who has received a University of Ottawa degree, diploma or certificate, but the act of academic fraud is unrelated to eligibility to receive such degree, diploma or certificate.
By way of illustration, section 2 could be amended to provide for, inter alia, the withholding of a degree, diploma or certificate in category (i) cases; or for revocation of a degree, diploma or certificate in category (ii) cases. Other potential sanctions applicable to both categories of cases might also be considered by the Senate.