Dear 2nd Year Students,

I hope you had a good Easter and you are keeping well.

I know there are some concerns about cheating in the exams this year, and so I want to explain a little of the safeguards we have in place. Cheating is not acceptable in any form and will not be tolerated. The penalties for academic misconduct are severe.

Before I start, let me emphasise that I do not believe you, as individuals, have any intention of cheating, and I hope that as you read this, it does not sound as though I do. But it is still vital to have measures in place, to reassure external examiners and employers of the strength of the degrees you achieve, and so that as students and as staff we all know we are working in a fair and robust system, and that the hard work you are all doing will be rewarded.

In the first place, exams are still timed. This will continue to be enforced with the rigour you would expect from previous years exams. Mathematics is hard, and if one does not actually understand the material, then it is very difficult to simulate correct answers without exposing forms of collusion. Markers see all the scripts, and both common and unusual solutions (in phrasing or other features) are immediately apparent. Nobody but your fellow students who attended the module with you know the hypotheses and methods and approaches and notation taken during that module - and while other solutions may be feasible (at least, if they do not make different assumptions or use different definitions), the examiner will know at once that they were not taught.

We will also study the data of exams. I have set up an Academic Integrity Panel to understand this data even as exams progress, and to investigate where appropriate. We also reserve the right to ask randomly selected students to sit further online oral exams after the written exams are complete, where you may be asked about the written solutions you gave during exams. (I emphasize that if you are asked to have an oral exam, it does not mean that we suspect you have cheated: random selection means that any student may be asked.)

Bear in mind also that all students are extremely busy. There are few who would wish to spend valuable time trying to increase somebody else's mark, losing preparation time for their own exams. And other people not on the module simply do not know the methods and underlying assumptions of the module - a professional mathematician would give very different solutions based on their own training, not yours.

The exams this year will be open book, which means that you may use materials you have downloaded from the module moodle page, or from books that you own or have downloaded in advance electronically. But during the 24 hours when the paper is open, you may not communicate with anyone by any means about the exam, and during your own 3 hour exam period you may not use Wikipedia, Google or other enquiry engines.

I am confident you understand that cheating is not in your personal interest. If you work alone with only the static revision materials you prepared in advance and your lecture notes to hand (or on a laptop or tablet) for consultation, then you are not cheating.

If you are concerned about this, please contact your Personal Tutor, or the Senior Tutor, or the SSLC rep. You can also make comments on the SSLC Covid-19 Question Hub at
https://moodle.warwick.ac.uk/mod/questionnaire/view.php?id=889867
where your comments will be read by the SSLC reps, and answers to general points will be posted on the departmental FAQ page
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/undergrad/coronavirus/faq

As always, you are welcome to contact me as Head of Department if you have concerns.

John