I have found that you can not depend on policy. If a student decides to to appeal the semester may well be over before a final decision is reached. In addition it is not a good use of time. One time the department seemed embarrassed that I had caught students cheating on an assignment. At the time at least 2 pages of my sylibus was devoted to academic honesty. In a hearing for one of these students I stated that his name was spelled differently on the assignments. He replied, "they are always spelling my name wrong" They referring to those who did the work. The hearing decided that I was to allow him to re do the assignment. This hearing took place a year after the end of the course and the student had transfered to another college. As far as I know the assignment was never completed and the incomplete assigned by the hearing has turned into an F. Since then I have used semi portfolios. Students work in groups with a similar core question. However, each student is responsible for a separate topic within the core. Assignments are cumulative and rewrites are frequent. Students usually figure out the course in time to drop out if they want to play games and get a quick grade. I do no lecturing and the class time is used for group work. Actually the only time I do lecture is when I am observed because the lecture is 60% of the eval. The students complain because this takes away from their class work time.
I think if we want to change the behavior we have to change the definition of the situation. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time on cheating.
Del
