Cheating Response Procedure.md

DiamondHacks Cheating Response Procedure

Originally forked from the official MLH Hackathon Rules.

The following is a guide of actions to be taken in the case of an accusation that a team cheated or otherwise violated the rules of competition. Violations of the Code of Conduct is handled under the Incident Response Procedure. Accusations of cheating may include but are not limited to:

• A team using somebody else’s code
• A team misrepresenting the work they did
• A team using code that was written outside the event

To determine the validity of cheating instances DiamondHacks will defer to the MLH Hackathon Rules.

Accusation

If you suspect cheating, or you are an organizer who has been made aware of an accusation of cheating, please get in touch with DiamondHacks. If you are aware of cheating during the hackathon, contact an organizer via discord. If it is after the event, please email wics.ncsu@gmail.com. The following steps are to be followed by DiamondHacks staff.

Document the Report

Try to get as much of the allegation in written form by the reporter. If you cannot, transcribe it yourself as it was told to you. The important information to gather include the following:

• Identifying information (name, email, phone, etc.) of the reporter
• Identifying information (name, email, phone, etc.) of the participant/team accused of cheating
• Reason the reporter suspects cheating
• Other people suspected to be involved in the cheating
• Other witnesses / people who suspect the cheating
• Any relevant URLs (e.g. for GitHub repos or Devpost pages)

There are also some guidelines as to what not to do as an initial response:

• Do not ask for their advice on how to deal with the complaint. This is a staff responsibility
• Do not offer them input into penalties. This is the staff's responsibility

Once something is reported to a staff member, immediately contact the WiCS team at wics.ncsu@gmail.com.

You can contact them on slack (where you can also find their cell numbers). The main objectives of the meeting with the League Team are to find out the following:

• What happened?
• Are we doing anything about it?
• Who is doing those things?
• When are they doing them?

Once DiamondHacks has been contacted we will investigate the allegation by reviewing public materials about the hack, including project repos, project submissions, and anything else available to them.

Response

Cheating Did Not Occur

If DiamondHacks determines cheating did not occur, they will compile a report and inform the reporter.

Other Outcomes

If DiamondHacks is unable to determine that cheating did not occur based on publicly available resources, DiamondHacks will then communicate with the alleged cheater. Informing them of what has been reported about them. Allow the alleged cheater to give their side of the story to the staff. After this point, if the report stands, let the alleged cheater know what actions will be taken against them.

Some actions for the staff to consider when dealing with alleged cheating offenders:

• Warning the cheater to cease their behavior and that any further reports will result in sanctions
• Not allowing the participants to demo
• Not allowing the participants to win prizes
• Revocation of prizes & recognitions
• Banning the participants from future events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)
• Publishing an account of the cheating

Sanctions for cheating are covered by the Disciplinary Action Policy.

Depending on the cheating allegation, DiamondHacks may decide to make one or more public announcements. If necessary, this will be done with a short announcement. No one other than DiamondHacks or someone delegated authority from DiamondHacks should make any announcements.

If some attendees were angered by the cheating, it is best to apologize to them that the cheating occurred to begin with. If there are residual hard feelings, suggest to them to write an email to DiamondHacks. It will be dealt with accordingly.