An Unexpected Plagiarism Accusation in My Online Course: A Search for Evidence

Navigating online education can sometimes lead to unexpected challenges, and recently, I found myself at the center of a perplexing situation involving a plagiarism accusation from my professor. Here’s a detailed account of what transpired, and the lessons learned along the way.

The Accusation

A few days ago, I received a rather troubling email from my professor claiming that I had submitted another student’s assignment. The email noted she would report me to the dean of academics at our university, where I am currently enrolled full-time in an online class. Naturally, I was taken aback by the accusation, particularly because I had no intention of committing any academic dishonesty.

I reached out to her for clarification, and she pointed out that I had uploaded a PDF with another student’s name on it. While she was correct to identify the error, it was purely accidental. As part of our assignment instructions, we were encouraged to “Post your assignment here so everyone can view your ideas.” To better understand the task, I had downloaded the PDF of a fellow student’s work, thinking it would help spark my creativity.

After I completed my assignment, I accidentally uploaded her document instead of my own due to the similar filenames. This mistake, while unfortunate, was not made with any ill intent.

Attempting to Resolve the Issue

In an effort to rectify the misunderstanding, I promptly sent an email to my professor, sincerely apologizing and providing my actual assignment along with a screenshot of the file’s metadata to demonstrate that I had completed my work before the submission deadline. I even offered instructions on how she could verify this information herself.

However, I was met with an even harsher response. She informed me that I would still receive a zero for the assignment, citing that I had “crossed a line” by downloading another student’s work. Frustrated but determined, I pointed out that the assignment’s instructions explicitly instructed us to view others’ work for inspiration. I quoted the very sentence from the submission page emphasizing this point.

The Anomalous Deletion

Shortly after sending my email, I noticed something unusual. When I revisited the assignment submission page to double-check my quote, the key sentence encouraging us to look at each other’s work had vanished—less than ten minutes after my email was sent. It felt like a deliberate attempt to erase evidence of the very guidelines the professor had