Law Center Rules on Final Examinations/Papers and Preventing Violations of Exam Policies and the Student Disciplinary Code

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER

DATE: April 2023

TO: All Students

FROM: Professors Frances DeLaurentis and Kristen

Tiscione, Co-Chairs, Professional Responsibility

Committee and Professor Michael S. Frisch,

Ethics Counsel

RE: Law Center Rules on Final Examinations/Papers

and Preventing Violations of Exam Policies and

the Student Disciplinary Code

As the end of the academic term approaches, we wish to familiarize you with your

obligations related to taking final exams. Our goal is to help you meet these obligations

and avoid incurring any penalties under our exam policies or violating the Student

Disciplinary Code (Code). Although the overwhelming majority of our students comply with

these rules, we want to ensure that those who disregard them do not gain an unfair

advantage.

Because of the complexity of these rules, we ask you to read this memo carefully

before the exam period begins. Although we hope you will not need them, this memo also

outlines the steps you should take if you run into any problems. As always, if you have any

questions, you may contact the Office of the Registrar by phone, (202) 662-9220, or email,

lawreg@georgetown.edu.

1. Use of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT Prohibited.

Unless expressly authorized by the professor in writing, students are prohibited

from consulting or using generative AI tools (e.g., AI chatbots such as ChatGPT) to create

written exam responses or to create text to incorporate into exam responses. Use of or

consultation with generative AI tools to draft written exam responses shall be treated as if

students received assistance from another person. For exams that require research,

students may use legal research tools, including but not limited to Westlaw, Lexis, or

Bloomberg Law to conduct legal research.

You will notice that the take-home exam honor statement now expressly affirms that

you have not used any unauthorized materials, including but not limited to AI chatbots

such as ChatGPT.

2. Comply with In-Class and Take-Home Exam Deadlines.

a. In-Class Exams.

i. Location of exam. Exam room locations are posted 30 minutes prior to

the start of the exams on the Office of the Registrar’s website and on TV monitors in the

second floor atrium of McDonough Hall, the McDonough Cafeteria, and the Sport & Fitness

Lobby. Be sure to bring your exam number.

ii. The Code requires that you stop writing when the time for the

exam expires. Students must stop working on their exam (this includes doing things like

adding an exam number or correcting the spelling of a word) the moment the exam time

has expired. Continuing to work on the exam in any way violates the Code and subjects

students to administrative or disciplinary charges (Student Handbook, p. 113, §§ 203-04).

iii. Late arrivals. If you arrive late to an in-class exam, do not enter the

room if the proctor has placed the “Examination in Progress” sign on the exam room door. If

that sign is on the door, proceed immediately to the Office of the Registrar in Hotung 4101

or the Registrar’s helpdesk in the atrium on the second floor of McDonough Hall. You will

be advised if you may take the exam during the remaining scheduled time with no grade

penalty or reschedule the exam. For details on the right to reschedule, see Late Arrivals

and Missed Examinations (Student Handbook, p. 96, ¶ 1).

iv. Missed exam. If, for any reason, you do not show up to take an in-class

exam, contact the Office of the Registrar immediately. The Registrar will also send you an

email notifying you that you missed your in-class exam. Within 24 hours of receiving that

email, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate that you missed the exam due to

extenuating circumstances (illness or other emergency) or to a “good-faith” mistake (e.g.,

oversleeping, a car breaking down, a mistake as to time or date of the exam). Students may

reschedule a missed exam once due to a good-faith mistake, with a corresponding one-step

grade reduction to the final grade for the course.

If the Registrar 1) is not persuaded that the exam was missed due to extenuating

circumstances or a good-faith mistake, or 2) does not hear from you within 24 hours of

receipt of that email, you will be assigned an AF (Administrative Fail) grade. Students

assigned an AF grade do not earn the allotted credits for taking the course, and the AF

grade factors into the GPA as an earned F (Student Handbook, p. 96, ¶ 2).

b. Take-Home Exams. Students must submit their exams on time as indicated by

the time stamp in Georgetown’s examination system. That means you must stop writing,

save, and submit your exam before the time allowed for taking the exam expires. There is

no grace period for the time it takes to upload your exam, so be sure to complete the process

before the time expires.

Note: We recommend that you save a copy of your completed exam to a secure folder

before the time period expires. If you run into any problems, you will then have a copy of

your exam that proves you completed it on time.

If you experience a problem submitting the exam on time, email a copy of the saved

exam to examdropbox@law.georgetown.edu and contact the Office of the Registrar by email

(lawreg@georgetown.edu) or by telephone (202-662-9220) within 10 minutes after the exam

time expires.

i. Late submissions—within 60 minutes after the exam time expires.

(a) First offense. The first time a student submits an examination within sixty

minutes after the exam time expires, the exam will be graded but subject to the following

penalties:

(1) If the student receives a passing grade in the course from the course

professor, the Registrar will enter an AP (Administrative Pass) on the transcript. The

student will earn the allotted credits for taking the course, but the AP grade will not factor

into the student’s GPA. The Registrar will notify the student when this action is taken.

(2) If the student receives a failing grade in the course, the Registrar will

enter an F on the transcript. The student will not earn the allotted credits for taking the

course, and the F grade will factor into the GPA.

(Student Handbook, p. 95).

(b) Second and subsequent offenses. After a student has received an AP grade

for the late submission of a take-home exam within 60 minutes after the exam time

expired, any additional, late returns of take-home exams by that student will be processed

under the Code (Student Handbook, p. 115, § 402(a)(ii)(2)).

ii. Late submissions—more than 60 minutes after the exam time

expires. Any exam submitted more than sixty minutes after the exam time expires is a

violation of the Code (Student Handbook, p. 115, § 402(a)). This subjects students to

administrative or disciplinary charges (Student Handbook, p. 109, §§ 203-04).

The following problems relating to the timely completion of exams are addressed in

the General Administrative Policies chapter of the Student Handbook (pp. 94-96):

iii. Late submissions—more than 24 hours after the exam time

expires. Students who download but do not submit their take-home exam within 24 hours

after the exam time expires will be assigned a grade of AF (Administrative Fail) on the

exam (Student Handbook, p. 94). Students assigned an AF do not earn the allotted credits

for taking the course, and the AF grade factors into the GPA as an earned F.

If your take-home exam is more than 24 hours late, the Registrar will send you an

email. To avoid the AF grade, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate that your exam

was completed on time but submitted late due either 1) to extenuating circumstances

(illness or other emergency), or 2) to a “good-faith” mistake (e.g., saving the exam and

closing out of the exam system before submission). If the Registrar is not persuaded that

the exam was late due to extenuating circumstances or a good-faith mistake, or receives no

response from you within 24 hours of receipt of that email, the AF grade will be permanent.

iv. Failure to download and submit the take-home exam. Any

student who does not download or submit a required take-home exam will be contacted by

the Registrar by email. To avoid being assigned an AF for the course, students should

follow the procedure set forth in Section 1.b.iii above (Student Handbook, pp. 94-95).

v. Submission of the wrong document. If, before your course grades are

recorded, you discover that you submitted the wrong document or the wrong version of your

take-home exam, notify the Office of the Registrar immediately. You will be asked to bring

in the computer used for the exam or email relevant files for inspection so that the correct

document may be retrieved and reviewed for timeliness. If a genuine, timely document is

retrieved, the Registrar will submit the correct document for grading with no penalty

(Student Handbook, p. 96).

For information on the right to request that an AF or AP penalty be waived, see the

Student Handbook (p. 95).

3. Do Not Plagiarize in Papers or Exams as Plagiarism Is Defined in the Code.

a. Plagiarism Defined. The use of the words or ideas of another as one’s own

without proper attribution to the source. Students are graded on the quality of their

thoughts as expressed in exams, papers, and articles, and therefore, any use of written

material without proper attribution to the source of the words or ideas violates the Code.

The plagiarism provision in the Code provides links that help explain what

plagiarism means at the Law Center (Student Handbook, pp. 111-12, § 101(a)). Neither the

absence of intent nor the reliance on sloppy note taking—in which the student mistakenly

copies someone else’s words or ideas into the student’s work product without attribution—is

a defense to a charge of plagiarism. Thus, students should take great care to distinguish

their own words from text taken from other sources. The term “sources” includes, but is not

limited to books, articles, papers, speeches, and all other primary and secondary material,

whether published in traditional hard-copy sources or on the internet or in other computer-

accessed sources.

b. Cutting and Pasting Prohibited. Cutting and pasting is prohibited regardless

of the source of the material, even if that material is original to the student. Unless

expressly authorized by the course professor in written exam instructions, students may

not copy/cut and paste any pre-written text (written prior to starting their exam) into their

take-home exams.

4. Maintain Anonymity in All Exams.

Do not reveal to your professor any information in the exam answers that would in

any manner identify you as the author of your exam. To protect your anonymity and remain

in compliance with the Code, students may not indicate to the professor that an exam has

been deferred, discuss any modification of the timing of an individual exam with the

professor, or otherwise identify themselves in any way to the professor as the author of the

exam until after grades are published. Students may not discuss the substance of the exam

with the professor or with any other student from the time the exam is first administered

until after grades are published (Attendance, Examinations, and Written Work, Student

Handbook, p.17).

5. Follow All the Rules of Your Specific Exams.

All exams are subject to these general rules as well as any individual professor

instructions, including the appropriate use of materials and electronic access. Failure to

follow your professor’s instructions may also violate the Code.

a. In-Class Exams. In addition to following specific rules related to your in-class

exam, listen to and follow the instructions on the exam video. Cell phones, smart watches,

or similar electronic devices must be turned off and left in the aisle. Any questions about in-

class rules must be addressed with the proctors before the exam begins. The use of external

scratch paper is prohibited. Any notes taken during the exam should be on the exam itself

or on the scratch paper handed out by the proctors. These materials will be collected at the

end of the exam.

b. Take-Home Exams. Most take-home exams prohibit student collaboration. In

addition to following specific rules related to your take-home exam, you may not discuss

your exam with anyone prior to submitting the completed exam to the Office of the

Registrar, unless specifically permitted by the professor.

Any discussion—with other students, faculty, or anyone else by any means—about

the exam, no matter how casual, may constitute a violation of the Code. For instance,

discussing an exam online, disclosing exam questions, and sharing exam answers are all

prohibited. Collaboration is a serious ethical violation that compromises the integrity of our

examination process. To ensure fairness, the Law Center investigates suggestions of

collaboration on take home exams. As part of the investigation, the Law Center may use

software that detects substantially similar answers.

6. Do Not Communicate with Professors or Students About Exams Until Grades

Are Posted.

If you have an issue relating to an exam or exam instructions, please contact the

Office of the Registrar, not your professor. Even an anonymous email or note to your

professor that relates to the exam will be considered a violation of this rule. Similarly,

because exams are not all administered at the same time, you may not discuss any exam

with any other students until grades are posted (see examples in the above paragraph).

For detailed information on exam accommodations and deferrals, see Exam Relief

Policies (Student Handbook, pp. 97-99).