I've been accused of cheating on a course

[flopsyandjim]

Apologies if this is long but I don't want to drip feed and I swear what I am saying is the truth.

For background: I am a disabled person. I have multiple disabilities both physical and mental - I have ptsd and have been suicidal in the past.

Despite my disabilities, I have achieved a Cert HE, a BA, a PgD, a MSC and I plan to do a PHD in the future.

I have always been employed and I did these courses distance learning or part time. I am currently employed in a university - this is relevant.

During lockdown, I did several upskilling modules to keep me busy if I wasn't able to go to the gym etc. I also enrolled in a online A level course and got a grant for the cost of this due to my disabilities.

I have had a lot of problems with this course due to its inaccessibility eg I am visually impaired and have highlighted these issues repeatedly to little change. I failed some assignments first time around and I am working on resubmissions. I have regular talks with other students and some of them are not happy. There are no exams, just written assignments.

Well I've now been contacted by one of the A level course tutors to say that my essays have been found on a cheating essay website alongside my picture as my profile picture.

I've never heard of this website before today. I went to have a look and there are some of my essays on there (do not know how they got them) alongside several lesson plans for such as "how to learn English" (which are not my work at all). It also has me registered as studying in India (which I never have).

I told the tutor that this is not my account and I have no idea how the essays got there. I have never shared my essays with any one other than my tutors.

He says I need to get them taken off or there could be serious repercussions. I cannot get them off if it is not my account. I have tried contacting the site to ask for them to be removed but their FAQs say they don't remove content once uploaded?

I am terrified. Whilst I don't care if I get kicked off the A level course (even though I'm innocent), I am worried about what implications this could have for me in other areas. Could my work find out? Could it affect my hopes of doing a PHD?

On that basis, all my assignments for my degree and postgrad courses had to go through turnitin and never did any issues come up. I got Merit and Distinction passes.

Why would I cheat on an A level course I don't even really need? Why?

I am terrified about what this could mean for me and also worry that other students on the course could be impacted. I am honestly innocent and I'm trying to get it resolved. I've changed all my passwords in case of a computer or email hack. I don't know what else I can do. Help and advice very much welcome, especially from those with experience of something like this. Sorry for the length.

You may have been hacked

well they are now not going to contact either my employer or IT department but just want to figure out what happened but I've to be assured they are not saying I was to blame, they just want to know how it happened as I said, backtracking a lot.

Wow. That sounds like they know they are in a shit for the handling it even if it wasn't their breach.

That's good. My next step would depend on whether they used the magic word "sorry" and acknowledged my distress over the incident. If not, I'd still be reporting them to the regulator for poor handling.

Why on earth do they think your employer will have any information regarding your home computer?! They may as well contact my employer for all the relevance it has!

Are they labouring under the misapprehension that you are doing this qualification via work, using work hardware?

I think I'd be sending them a very strong email asking for their justification for contacting your employer on a situation that is completely unrelated to your employment. I think I'd use the word 'harrassment'.

their investigation will take 14 days so I might not hear anything further until then.

I strongly suspect much of my complaint will be ignored though.

But will see

If they ignore something you ask about it again with "You must have missed it last gime as I didn't get an answer to that question" or something equally showing how angry you are.

okay so the investigation has concluded. I got an email and not sure how to respond to it.

My assignments are still being marked and what happened will not affect the outcome (so they say).

They say the tutor got an "anonymous" tip off that I had cheated but no mention of name / email / number. I don't know if I have the right to ask for this - I might recognise the email address. Also think tutor is lying about anonymous....

Got an acknowledgement that tutor's language "may have caused concern" but no apology.

They are giving me a full course refund as a "gesture of goodwill"

They want return of all course equipment provided to me (small monitor) They offered me it and never said it was a loan or that they'd want it back! I don't even know where I've put it (ipad) so that's a worry as I may get into trouble about that.

They still say it was my name and image on the cheating site and 'thank you' for removing this. I didn't remove it. I reported it to the site as being false and the site removed it. So they are acting like I'm still guilty.

Don't know what to reply. Don't know whether to let it go. The fact someone behaved so maliciously towards me really upsets me. There's a number of people over the years who haven't liked me so who knows who it could be. Maybe the tutor, maybe someone else?

sorry I meant its an ipad/monitor type screen they gave me. Looks like an ipad.

Thanks for the update op. My opinion is that you should be satisfied by this response and move on. You're in danger of acting irr

... in a way that is over-emotional. There is no reason to think anyone is lying to you or doesn't like you. That is irrational.

And if they have lined you equipment then of course you should give it back. But if they did not make it clear it was a loan then it would be reasonable to point that out.

Take the refund, get the qualification and return the monitor.
However, when you do respond do state that, "To be clear, I did not remove my name or image from XXX website - I reported the inclusion as being false/not submitted by me, and they removed it." (Or words to that general effect)